I liked the sly references to Beckett and Wittgenstein, and I liked the creepy invasiveness of the heroine's investigations—hints of Blue Velvet'sI liked the sly references to Beckett and Wittgenstein, and I liked the creepy invasiveness of the heroine's investigations—hints of Blue Velvet's generalized anxiety. I liked less the overall arc of the story: the book feels motivated by revenge....more
A muscular, energetic, homespun narrative. The opening chapter of the book will disabuse anyone of the notion that riding the rails is a romanticA muscular, energetic, homespun narrative. The opening chapter of the book will disabuse anyone of the notion that riding the rails is a romantic adventure. When Guthrie finally picks up a guitar and takes the first steps in his music career, at about p. 178, it's a relief from the repetitive stories of fistfights and brawling in boxcars. In dialog sections, Guthrie is not necessarily concerned that we know who's talking. And his story of how he got started hawking papers as a newsboy doubles back on itself -- who, exactly, showed him the ropes?
His descriptive voice is assured, colorful, and owes a little to Whitman. Here's a good example of his writing, from his travels in California:
In the smell of the high pines and the ripple of the nugget creeks, Sonora, an old town now, is rated as California's second richest person. Pasadena is first, and looks it, but what fools you in Sonora is that it looks like one of the poorest. I walked up the main street loaded to the brim with horses, hay, children playing, jallopy cars of the ranchers and working folks around, buggies of the Indians, wagons loaded with groceries for grubstake, town cars, limousines, sporty jobs, the big V-16's and the V-Twelves. The main street crooks pretty sharp right in the business end, and crooks another time or two trying to get out of the first crook. The street is so narrow that people sneeze on the right-hand side and apologize to the ones on the left. (chap. XIV, p. 241)
A chewy collection of magazine columns about usage. The pseudo-quantitative guide to the question "should I give up on nonplussed?" is perhaps theA chewy collection of magazine columns about usage. The pseudo-quantitative guide to the question "should I give up on nonplussed?" is perhaps the most useful.
Yagoda occupies the prgamatic middle ground between the prescriptivist and descriptivist camps: he's coined the unwieldy term "flexiptivist" to describe his position. ...more
Joseph Cornell, for all his reticence (may he forgive me that judgement), met a remarkable number of the 20th century's creative people, from MarianneJoseph Cornell, for all his reticence (may he forgive me that judgement), met a remarkable number of the 20th century's creative people, from Marianne Moore to Robert Rauschenberg to Susan Sontag to Andy Warhol, and all of these connections are documented in Deborah Solomon's fine biography and assessment of the work. Cornell was a part of, and stood apart from, several disparate movements in the art world: the Surrealists, the (largely forgotten) neo-Romantics, the Ab Ex crowd, the Minimalists, and the early practitioners of Pop.
In space of personal relationships, however, Solomon makes it clear that Cornell was a flop. For most of his life unable to have normal relations with members of the opposite sex, Cornell was harmless but not far from creepy. His infatuation in 1964 with the doomed Joyce Hunter, a coffee shop waitress, would make for a movie by itself.
Working in the 1990s, Solomon conducted an exhaustive number of interviews with the people who knew Cornell (who died in 1972). She follows him into the defense plant where he worked briefly during World War II; she finds him running a cash register at a garden nursery in Flushing in 1944. Solomon also had the benefit of Cornell's obsessive diary-keeping, even if many of his notes were undated fragments on napkins and paper scraps....more
This is a masterful work of biography, "the history not of a personality but of a career," as Stegner writes in his introductory note. As such, notThis is a masterful work of biography, "the history not of a personality but of a career," as Stegner writes in his introductory note. As such, not only does Stegner follow John Wesley Powell down the frightful canyons of the Colorado River and into the even more fearsome halls of the national capital, but the author dwells on Powell's companions and antagonists, his allies and his would-be emulators. He devotes long admiring passages to Powell's associates Capt. Clarence Dutton and Grove Karl Gilbert; he is almost rhapsodic about William Henry Holmes, who provided meticulous grand-scale scientific illustrations for Dutton's geological writings. He explains the dry, hard-rock conditions that Powell found in the west, and makes the connections to Powell's scientific report of 1877, which argued for a pattern of settlement arranged by geology and watersheds and governed communally.
Stegner is wittily cutting about Capt. Samuel Adams, failed explorer of the same Plateau Province of western Colorado, eastern Utah, and northern Arizona. Adams was convinced that the Colorado offered a navigable passage from the ocean to the Rocky Mountains, the author calls him "a preposterous, twelve-gauge, hundred-proof, kiln-dried, officially notarized fool, or else he was one of the most wildly incompetent scoundrels who ever lived." (p. 201) And the account of feud between Powell and Othniel C. Marsh on the one hand and Edward D. Cope on the other is an eye-opener.
Stegner is also a writer of fiction, and he brings a novelist's command of language to this work. The conceit of human geological understanding being directly reflected in the rocks of the Province is particularly fine (p. 120).
New Mexico's tagline is "Land of Enchantment." There's not much to separate enchantment from delusion, and part of the history of the west is the story of that delusion. Powell's virtue was in seeing clearly through the enchantment. Much of his work was truncated, at least in his lifetime, but "the only thing clearer than the failure of his grandiose schemes of study is the compelling weight of their partial accomplishment." (p. 264)...more
A juicy slice of DeLillo's satire of technological ennui. How can you not love a passage like this?
[Eric] saw a police lieutenant carrying a
A juicy slice of DeLillo's satire of technological ennui. How can you not love a passage like this?
[Eric] saw a police lieutenant carrying a walkie-talkie. What entered his mind when he saw this? He wanted to ask the man why he was still using such a contraption, still calling it what he called it, carrying the nitwit rhyme out of the age of industrial glut into smart spaces built on beams of light. (p. 102)
Updike crafts a lovely little prose poem out of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom rummaging through a friend's medicine cabinet, stocked with goods from 1979,Updike crafts a lovely little prose poem out of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom rummaging through a friend's medicine cabinet, stocked with goods from 1979, with that all-important brand-name macron:
The cabinet has more in it than he would have supposed: thick milk-glass jars of skin cream and flesh-tint squeeze bottles of lotion and brown tubes of suntan lotion, Parepectolin for diarrhea, Debrox for ear wax control, menthol Chloraseptic, that mouthwash called Cēpacol, several kinds of aspirin, both Bayer and Anacin, and Tylenol that doesn't make your stomach burn, and a large chalky bottle of liquid Maalox.
Davis's foray into new sources of material, chief among them dreams of her own or friends, doesn't work for me. There's too much of the personal andDavis's foray into new sources of material, chief among them dreams of her own or friends, doesn't work for me. There's too much of the personal and not enough of the universal here.
That said, "Idea for a Sign" is a lovely neurotic rant; "The Language of Things in the House" is downright whimsical; "The Magic of the Train" is also strong. Perhaps travel by rail is especially salubrious for Davis. "Local Obits," presumably reworked found material, is pitch-perfect....more
A useful, engaging collection of profiles of American women naturalists, from the well-known (Rachel Carson) to the obscure (Ynes Mexia). TheseA useful, engaging collection of profiles of American women naturalists, from the well-known (Rachel Carson) to the obscure (Ynes Mexia). These pioneering women show a range of personalities, pleasant and not so; but all of them who succeeded at field work show an acquired taste for beans. Bonta emphasizes the mutual support networks that arose among them, especially the Althea Sherman-Margaret Morse Nice-Amelia Laskey axis. For a number of reasons, many of these women do not leave a record of extensive publications (Florence Merriam Bailey and Carson being notable exceptions); rather, their legacy is often in assembling collections and organizing museums (Alice Eastwood, Ellen Quillin).
It seems unfair to downrate a book for something outside of the author's control. However, the paperback edition is marred by a production error for which the publisher, Texas A&M Press, should be abashed: on several pages there are illustrations that don't take up the entire page and the text continues under the illustration. Or at least (presumably) it does so in the original 1991 hardcover edition; in my paper edition, the text is just missing. Cutting two half-paragraphs out of Alice Eastwood's story, for instance, does her no good service.
Good pointers in the bibliography to more complete treatments of several of these groundbreakers—a good resource for some of my Wikipedia projects....more
To capture the immense span of Texas, Ferber wants to strip the commas from her prose, so that her arms may spread all the wider. It's a riskyTo capture the immense span of Texas, Ferber wants to strip the commas from her prose, so that her arms may spread all the wider. It's a risky stylistic choice that I like:
Downstairs and upstairs, inside and out, on awnings carpets couches chairs desks rugs; towels linen; metal cloth wood china glass, the brand JR was stamped etched emroidered embossed woven painted inlaid. (ch. 4)
The structure of this big novel of social themes, gently satiric about lifestyles of the Texas rich and baldly indignant about racism toward Latinos, beginning as it does at the end in the 1950s and then flashing back to the 1920s, makes for some less-than-happy flashforwards—the "if she knew then what we know now" sort of thing. And Leslie Lynnton Benedict, of Ohio-Virginia gentility, poor in property but rich in heritage, is a silly girl, after all, but she is our lens on the Texas enormity, and she does her part well.
Ferber has an ear for the Lone Star lingo ("choused," "ganted"). The barbecue scene in chap. 11 is quite fine, especially the description of barbecoa (tip: it's not that stuff you order at Chipotle). And Jett Rink (the JR of the passage above) is a fine antagonist to the Benedicts; he's one sorry SOB indeed....more
I found the cool, detached first person plural narrators' voice of this novel absolutely intoxicating. Chang-Rae Lee finds a graceful way to explainI found the cool, detached first person plural narrators' voice of this novel absolutely intoxicating. Chang-Rae Lee finds a graceful way to explain how his narrators can be omnipresent but not omniscient. At about page 62, there's a lovely modulation of focus from Fan, the young girl who has begun her picaresque journey in the mountains, to the boy Reg, who left her behind in the new company town of B-Mor; the focus slips back in time and place and then returns, softly, to Fan. The tone even finds a way to accommodate the utterly harrowing episode of the Nickelmans.
There's a fairy tale quality to this story (the narrators at one point refer to the "trials of young Fan"), and something that reminds me of the film Pleasantville. Fan, in a way, restores color to the lives of those she meets.
And there's more than a dash of Huxley here, too, as the people of this future world willingly maintain their places in the new socioeconomic strata, and (especially those in B-Mor) embrace the communal good at the expense of an individual thriving. We are all cousins, as the narrators say.
Some elements are less than perfectly successful. Certain turns of phrase might be more comprehensible to someone who is a closer reader than me. And the dramatic compressing of all the book's events into the brief period of Fan's undetected pregnancy stretches credulity.
I found this novel, one of three of Carkeet's books featuring the bemused linguist Jeremy Cook with which I'm familiar, somewhat less successful thanI found this novel, one of three of Carkeet's books featuring the bemused linguist Jeremy Cook with which I'm familiar, somewhat less successful than the others. The plot requires that Jeremy be rather boneheaded about the ways of men and women in a relationship, boneheaded even by the standards of 1990, when the book was first published.
To its credit, the story introduces us to Roy Pillow, Jeremy's infuriating boss, comically opaque and grotesque....more
Carrier's essays are honest (sometimes uncomfortably so for the reader), way off the beaten track (one of the pieces here concerns rock and roll inCarrier's essays are honest (sometimes uncomfortably so for the reader), way off the beaten track (one of the pieces here concerns rock and roll in Myanmar), and deadpan funny. He attempts a prank to spite wealthy skiers who use helicopters for access to slopes in his native Utah and nearly has a fatal accident. In Afghanistan, he meets Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, who was connected with a horrific massacre of Taliban prisoners and is still active politically today.
The core of this collection is the story of a translator whom he meets in a war zone and subsequently sponsors into a college program in the States, twisted around accounts of the eccentrics who founded the Church of Mormon (Carrier has been in and out of the faith), and bound with revelations of his sometimes unstable personal life. An example of Carrier's wit, from p. 79:
Prophecy and polygamy often go together. When God speaks to a man and tells him he is the new prophet and must now take charge of the only true church, the next thing He often tells the man is to become a polygamist. Part of the responsibility of being the new prophet is to spread "the seed of David" and produce the new chosen people. This takes a lot of women and a lot of effort.
Stories of the commonplace, crammed with fantastical invention. In a couple of instances, for example "A State of Variance," there's so much going onStories of the commonplace, crammed with fantastical invention. In a couple of instances, for example "A State of Variance," there's so much going on that one wishes the story to expand to novella length so as to give the fantasy some space to breathe. "Bad Return" is an engaging picaresque novel of college days compressed to 30 pages. The strongest of the collection is "The Color Master," finding just the right mix (as does the title character) of the quotidian and the bizarre....more
A vivid, at times disturbing, but not altogether persuasive reconstruction of the formative years of outsider artist Henry Darger. For Darger'sA vivid, at times disturbing, but not altogether persuasive reconstruction of the formative years of outsider artist Henry Darger. For Darger's childhood, Elledge has not much to go on but Darger's autobiographical writings, and Darger is nothing if not an unreliable narrator. This leaves Elledge grasping at a lot of "certainlys" and "presumablys" and "probablys."
On the positive side, it's good to get a book that emphasizes the writings rather than the paintings, one that dives into Darger's third book (after "In the Realms of the Unreal" and "The History of My Life"), the intriguing "Further Adventures in Chicago: Crazy House."
And Elledge has better documentary support for his account of Darger's adult life and his relationship with William Schloeder....more
... is not bound in blue, but there is plenty of blue in it.
Kennedy is always a challenge, specializing as she does in broken people. However, this... is not bound in blue, but there is plenty of blue in it.
Kennedy is always a challenge, specializing as she does in broken people. However, this time, I found the atmosphere between Beth and Arthur, the confidence tricksters with uncanny empathy for their marks, to be suffocating. I was glad every time that Bunny and Francis, the guileless couple they meet onboard, returned. Beth's chatty interior monologues, set in italics, sometimes run to the tiresome.
But perhaps a reaction to the theme is my own failing: I felt a similar lack of enthusiasm for Herman Melville's The Confidence-Man....more
The closing chapter, a profile of the New Jersey Meadowlands past and present, is particularly worthwhile. Also helpful, in the chapter on non-nativeThe closing chapter, a profile of the New Jersey Meadowlands past and present, is particularly worthwhile. Also helpful, in the chapter on non-native "troublemakers:" the balanced assessment of the European strain of Common Reed (Phragmites australis), a near-ubiquitous visitor from across the ocean; and the reminder that our cherished mid-Atlantic cordgrass, Spartina alterniflora, is considered to be an alien invasive on the West Coast....more
I found it interesting to revisit this agenda-setting book from 2006. Obama sets out a center-left platform of electability. If his prose generallyI found it interesting to revisit this agenda-setting book from 2006. Obama sets out a center-left platform of electability. If his prose generally does not rise to eloquence, he states his positions in clear language.
Also notable: he stresses the distinction between means and results (chap. 3); he writes that a strong motivator for established politicians is fear, specifically fear of catastrophic, humiliating defeat (chap. 4).
Once he's established context, Obama leads off his "what to fix" chapters with one entitled "Opportunity," and he begins his name-checks with Alexander Hamilton. Investment in education and basic research—no surprises here. What is startling is how little space is given to environmental issues. Apart from avoidance of the foreign oil bugbear and the acceptance of the science on climate change, he has nothing to say....more
A skillful reconstruction of the 1911 industrial disaster, as well as the social and political milieu in which it took place and the reforms thatA skillful reconstruction of the 1911 industrial disaster, as well as the social and political milieu in which it took place and the reforms that followed it. The three diagrams of the top floors of the Asch Building (oh, so, apposite a name) (still standing, now as NYU's Brown Building) on fire are very good. Von Drehle debunks some of the rumors that surround the debacle, i.e., that all of the doors were locked, while making it clear that the locked door on the 9th floor on the Washington Place side of the building was the deadly one. His evocation of the doomed bodies falling to the pavement is appropriately horrifying....more
**spoiler alert** That Plimpton didn't realize the biggest part of his dream gives the last third of the book a feeling of anticlimax, but perhaps it**spoiler alert** That Plimpton didn't realize the biggest part of his dream gives the last third of the book a feeling of anticlimax, but perhaps it is part of the book's charm. Players get cut all the time (and Plimpton takes us through that process) and not every story has a happy ending. (Of course, anyone looking at the photos in the center of the book can figure out what's up.)
The book suffers from a bit of bloat: we spend too much time with players' dormitory hijinx, and the Rookie Night section could easily be cut.
But it's a good, hard look at a more innocent time in the NFL, when a quarterback could toss passes to neighborhood kids after practice. At the time that Plimpton attended the Lions' training camp, the H-shaped goal posts were in the field of play, at the goal line; the AFL was just getting off the ground; and there was no generally accepted term for the quarterback sack. Plimpton worries at length about being tackled in the pocket, but never uses the S-word....more
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