Tuesday, August 12, 2014

About a Few Books I've Read Lately

Books, 2014

I bought Teju Cole's Open City after reading this blog post and finding out he had a fondness for Michael Ondaatje. What has lingered with me most is the end of the main character's visit to the American Folk Art Museum.
I lost all track of time before these images, fell deep into their world, as if all the time between them and me had somehow vanished, so that when the guard came up to me to say the museum was closing, I forgot how to speak and simply looked at him. When I eventually walked down the stairs and out of the museum, it was with the feeling of someone who had returned to the earth from a great distance.
I love that.

I honestly do not recall how I learned of Stoner by John Williams, but I do know it was mentioned by someone online. Thank you, mystery reader*. I borrowed Stoner from the library. It is one of those heavy books worth the weight. It left me contemplating my life, and all of the lives that have touched mine. There is a quote in the introduction (read after the book, as always...) from an interview with the author that I've been thinking about. Williams is disenchanted with the way literature is taught.
"as if a novel or poem is something to be studied and understood rather than experienced."
I'm with Williams on this one.

I found Rachel Zucker's The Pedestrians on the poetry table in Point Reyes Books. I almost always find something appealing in their little poetry section. The Pedestrians was published by Wave Books, and after reading Mary Ruefle's Madness, Rack, & Honey (Thanks, Shari), I had good feelings about Wave Books. Standing beside the poetry table, in a sort of up-for-anything mood, I opened The Pedestrians to the first entry in the fables section, jumped to the center of the page and read:
"Yes," she thought, through the haze of jet lag," there should be no limits placed on the value of a very fine cheese."
I decided I wanted to read more. Done. What stayed?
"The mountains looked as real as a photograph."
This sentence is a door into so many conversations. The way one perceives photography is endlessly fascinating to me. 

Before bed last night I was trying to decide what I would read next, Lorrie Moore's Anagrams, or Sam Shepard's Great Dream of Heaven. I'd pulled Anagrams from a pile of books someone left in the entryway of our building. A few of the tenants do this, place books on the hall table to see if another tenant might be interested. I found Great Dream of Heaven while wandering City Lights several months ago. This is the first sentence in Anagrams:
Gerarad Maines lived across the hall from a woman named Benna, who four minutes into any conversation always managed to say the word penis
Although I found this beginning sentence fairly entertaining, I decided to end my day with Sam Shepard.

What are you reading?

*Mystery solved on August 13, 2014. I learned about Stoner while reading a post about poppy seed bread. Carina mentioned being lost in a book and I had to comment and ask what book she had been lost in. Stoner was her answer.

21 comments:

  1. I love your reading suggestions! I'm reading your book :)

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  2. I'm definitely going to read the novels. And just the sound of Point Reyes Books makes me swoon. Of course they have a poetry table. I loved Madness, Rack, and Honey, and I am constantly dipping into her collected poems. Happy reading!

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  3. So interesting you reference MichaelI Ondaatje,I just finished Running In The Family, and am eager to read more.

    Recently I've read, Elizabeth Gilbert's The Signature Of All Things and was happily surprised.

    The Realm of Last Chances by Steve Yarbrough and The Hare With Amber Eyes by Edmund de Waal and for fun, an Inspector Lynley novel, Just One Evil Act by Elizabeth GeorgeI could go on. Kindle makes it all to easy to indulge me literary sweet tooth.

    Stop me!

    xo J

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    1. Nope, I won't stop you. I love Running in the Family! What's next? Divisadero? The Cat's Table? Carry on.

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  4. oh yes - stoner... one of the best books i´ve read last year, it´s "heaviness" still stays on - every turn in life seems to be so meaningfull with this little gem now...

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    1. Oh! Did you post about Stoner? Maybe your blog is where I learned of it...

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  5. Someone just recommended Stoner to me earlier this morning! I am reading After the Sour Lemon Moon, by a gifted writer...

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    1. This morning. Really? I am so curious about how this 1965 book suddenly seems to be popping up everywhere. It was reissued in 2003, but that was over ten years ago. I'm intrigued. And you are reading my book! Wonderful. Thank you.

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  6. Maybe this is why Stoner has suddenly become so talked about. It's not how I heard of it, but... http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/11/magazine/you-should-seriously-read-stoner-right-now.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Aw%2C{%221%22%3A%22RI%3A7%22}&_r=1

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  7. I have read Teju Cole's book that you speak of, everything by Ondaatje and just completed Stoner. There is a common thread of interest and good storytelling by all these writers that is simply divine. Thanks for the other suggestions.

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    1. Everything by Ondaatje--cheers to that! Good storytelling, indeed. I felt I needed a pause after Stoner. Difficult to jump to the next thing after that novel. I needed to sit with all of the thoughts it conjured up for a while. Although I have now started a new book, Stoner is still with me.

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  8. "…rather than experienced." Yes, yes, yes - I agree wholeheartedly, and confess to having a bias towards reviewers who take the same approach, which in itself I worry is not fair to the books whose fate it is to be reviewed by those who feel the need to "understand" a book.
    Reading wise at a neighbour gathering I was told of a book about a young man who recreates the journey of genghis khan on horseback - so I am off to the library to find a copy...

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  9. I often have to experience a poem before I can even begin to understand it. I feel my way through like a blind man, touching words into shape and shapes into color and light.

    I finished The Book Thief last week and fell in love with Death and his adjectives.

    I've never read anything by Ondaatje before, but I will move him to the top of my list after Shelley's Frankenstein. Which of his books should I read first?

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    1. I would like to read Shelley's Frankenstein as well. My three favorites by Ondaatje are Divisadero, Running in the Family, and The Cat's Table. Perhaps it would be best to begin with Running in the Family.

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  10. Stoner has been on my shelf for a few months...sounds like I need to get to it as soon as I get home! (It was heavily promoted in Waterstones stores here in the UK at the start of the year...) And, Anagrams, oh how I love Anagrams. It's a strange one, but I don't think you'll be disappointed when the time is right! (Think, an exploration of all the ways your life might have gone.)

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    1. I'm just now in chapter two of Anagrams and it is just as you describe. I'm curious to see what's next.

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  11. What a treasure, this post. As soon as I finished reading it, I got Ondaatje's Running in the Family off the shelf. I'm going to look out for Stoner.
    My favourite here though: "The mountains looked as real as a photograph." Such a stunning shift in perspective; so many possibilities.

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    1. Your favorite really stopped me. I agree, so many possibilities.

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