The All-Time All-Timers (part 1 of 3)

I mentioned in my last post that when I get asked about my favorite book, I often try to answer with a book that is not from the canon, not read and discussed in classrooms across the country.  I teach American Literature quite a bit, for example, so choosing Huck Finn or The Scarlet Letter or The Great Gatsby as my favorite seems too expected, too ordinary.  So, instead, I answer I Am One of You Forever (see my last post!) or I mention the name of a book I read recently and enjoyed.

But here’s the thing.  I love those canonical books.  Familiarity breeds contempt? Not when you’re talking about Hester Prynne.  I have read and re-read some of these books 15 times.  Seriously.  I’m in deep with most of the novels that you and everyone you know read in high school.  I know Gatsby so well I could plan the menu for one of his parties.  I’ve travelled down the Mississippi with Huck long enough that I can recite entire stanzas of Emmeline Grangerford’s poetry.  I’ve seen enough of Hester’s backbone and grit and passion that I sometimes blush when I talk about her. 

So now my current two-week plan is to write about one of these giants of American Literature every few days.   Check back often!    

Be forewarned: Some of what I say may be English teacher-y!

Today’s selection:  The Great Gatsby!

This is just a great book to read and discuss and teach.  The themes are deeply American and have real resonance with most students. Reading Gatsby makes me consider:  

• Is it possible to be a “self-made man” in today’s America?  And is it possible to reinvent yourself? 
• Who, and what, do we value in America?  Has that changed over the years?
• To what should we aspire in life?  Greater social heights, like Myrtle?  Security, like Daisy?  Love, like Gatsby? Superfluity, like Tom? 

Additionally, Gatsby has re-entered the popular culture because of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie and other, smaller references, like this one from the unrivaled TV drama, The Wire. (WARNING:  Some of the language, although appropriate to the character and situation, is saltier than a can of cashews.  In other words, the characters swear).   

People know The Great Gatsby right now, so it’s an entirely appropriate topic of conversation at dinner parties.  Right?

 OK, maybe not.  But these themes are still on point, and these discussions work in the classroom, and that’s one reason I love re-reading and teaching this book. 

The other is because, once in a while, when I find myself lost in the narrative, a section of Gatsby just slaps me awake.  I notice these sections more upon re-reading.   For example, my favorite part of this book has become when Gatsby introduces Tom and Daisy around one of his parties:

He took them ceremoniously from group to group:

“Mrs. Buchanan … and Mr. Buchanan –“ After an instant’s hesitation he added: “the polo player.”

“Oh no,” objected Tom quickly, “not me.”

But evidently the sound of it pleased Gatsby, for Tom remained “the polo player” for the rest of the evening.

 It’s a small bit, but I look forward to it every year. It just strikes me as so funny.  And humanizing. Gatsby gives the needle to his competition, and Tom, God love him, can’t stand to have his pretentiousness popped. FYI:  If I’m ever at a party with you, and I introduce you to someone as “the polo player,” it’s not a compliment.

Find your old copy of Gatsby and give it a go.  Next up, The Scarlet Letter!

I Am One of You Forever

I Am One of You Forever

Fred Chappell

I can’t remember when I first read this or how I came to it; I would guess my mom or my Aunt Jody passed it to me.  My mom is a reader through and through, and her sister Jody is the same, perhaps with a little more interest in Southern literature.  I just know that for many, many years, when people would ask me for the title of my favorite book, I’d cite this one.  Part of my answer was, maybe, an attempt to avoid a work from the canon, a Huck Finn or Scarlet Letter.  Part of it was, probably, a desire to sound in the know:  Forget what others say – here’s your right answer! (In the 1990’s I had a bit of the “young hipster who only likes obscure bands” attitude about books.  I probably still do.  But don’t we all enjoy the act of discovery, of gaining esoteric knowledge, of initiating and sharing that knowledge with others?). Chappell’s work is widely respected but I wouldn’t call it mainstream, so I Am One of You Forever is the perfect choice for “favorite book” for a certain personality at a certain age.  Which is to say, me, for a long, long time.  

But here’s the thing – I knew what I was talking about.  It is a great book.  It’s hilarious, touching, and poetic.  The story  (most simply: a boy grows up on a North Carolina  farm) is simple and episodic.  There’s only the scantest hint of a plot: uncles who are part myth and part magic arrive and leave, the boy and his father and their farmhand antagonize the boy’s grandmother, and life, the good and the bad of it, continues.

If the story is simple and straightforward, the writing is simple and astounding.  Chappell writes clearly and with economy (it’s not surprising that he is an accomplished poet) and his writing in places is just plain beautiful. 

Here’s an excerpt from when Johnson Gibbs, the 18 year-old farmhand, is introduced to the family.  It’s not the most poetic section of the novel, but it’s memorable.

My mother – who was no help at the farm, since she taught school all day – took to him immediately.  She loved boys – that was probably a big reason she married my father.  She loved most of all boys who were quiet and cheerful and well-mannered, as Johnson was.  And he was good-looking besides.  When my mother was introduced to him her hands went automatically to her hips, smoothing her skirt.

Johnson’s eyes were of a light blue color, and when he met my father they became lighter, almost transparently blue.  His smile tightened a quick animal reaction.  There would be conflict between them – that was inevitable – but the introduction went off affably enough, and took place on a Sunday.

They didn’t fight until the next day.  It was a law woven into the fabric of the universe that these two young men were going to have at it; and Monday was as good a day as the Lord ever made.

The mother smoothing her skirt over her hips, Johnson’s smile tightening – I have never forgotten those details.  And consider how much we learn about everyone in those three short paragraphs! 

Listen, I don’t know if this is my favorite book anymore – is it even possible to pick just one book as a favorite? – but this is a great, great novel.  You won’t regret reading this.  

Dog Heaven

My sister’s dog died this past week.  This is a terrible event for any dog-owner and dog-lover, but it was made more difficult this time by the fact that Rookie, a handsome chocolate lab, was a Very Good Boy. Patient and loyal, he was a testament to his breed, the type of lab that made everyone want a lab.  Of course, he owed much of his tolerant and gentle disposition to his owners, and he had great ones.  We will all miss him.

When I heard about the Rook, I thought about how sad my nephews would be and that thought led me immediately to Dog Heaven, a wonderful book by Cynthia Rylant.   We read it to our kids twelve years ago when our dog, (Seamus, a spoiled but loving Golden Retriever) had to be put down.  Though I hadn’t read the book in twelve years, it was one of the first things I thought of when I heard the news about Rookie.  That’s saying something about this wonderful book.  

Dog Heaven is simple in image and text, a benefit when kids or too-choked-up adults try to read it.  I also think the simplicity of the book mirrors the straightforwardness of dogs, their desires, and our responsibilities.  

Dogs want fields so they can run.

  They want children to play with.

 And they want treats to eat.

My memory of the Rook will be of him pressing his big anvil head into my leg as I scratch his ears. He might try to get closer, stepping on my foot, jumping and putting his paws on my chest, just saying hello. Just being a good boy.

Dog Heaven is a beautiful, playful, and comforting book.  And now I have to go.  It’s getting a little dusty in here.

The Curfew

The Curfew

Jesse Ball

The Curfew is one of the books that made me want to start this blog.  I read it two years ago and was so blown away that I wrote to the author, something I had never done before.  For months afterwards when people asked me for a book recommendation (I’m an English teacher so I often get asked, and when I don’t get asked I make suggestions anyway) I would say, “The Curfew, it’s the best book I’ve read in years.”  And then a few more months passed.  And when people would ask me for a book recommendation I would say, “The Curfew. It’s the best book I’ve read in years.”  People would ask, “What’s it about?”  And I would reply, “Well, it’s about a father and his daughter.  It’s set in some post-revolutionary city.  There is a puppet show….”

Now, I knew more details, but some of them were insignificant to the question, “What’s it about?”  (Could it be true that the better the book, the more useless the question, “What’s it about?” is?  Maybe it’s just a bad question).    I could tell the questioners about how the father crafts the epitaphs that go on tombstones.  And the daughter is mute. And the father played the violin before music was outlawed.  And that there are parts of the puppet show that might make you cry.  I could say all that, but would that answer the question about what the book is about?  Would that encourage people to pick up the book? 

The point I was trying to make – before I started to veer off-track there -- is that some of the relevant details of the book had faded away and I could only communicate broad outlines.   I felt more and more that I was remembering only vague and fuzzy impressions of some books that I wanted to remember in better detail.   So I decided to create this blog because I’m getting old and for all of the other reasons on the right sidebar.  The Curfew is one of those books I want to always recall precisely.

What’s it about?  Well, it is a story of a father and daughter trying to remain unnoticed in an Orwellian city.  The mother was “taken away for good” one day, and so the accomplished but non-playing  violinist  turned “epitahorist” to raise their mute child.  The father avoids all conflict until, having been promised that there was some news about his wife’s disappearance, he attends a meeting of people eager to overthrow the oppressive ruling authority. He leaves Molly, his daughter, with the across-the-hall elderly couple as he goes to the meeting.  In order to pass the time, Mr. Gibbons, the grandfatherly neighbor and marionette, creates a puppet show with Molly’s help.

But here’s the thing:  The narrative moves back and forth between William’s  clandestine meeting and the puppet show in the Gibbons’ apartment.  It’s unbelievable, really, how the two narratives merge and move forward, together, until the emotional end of the book. It’s a spare book and some details are never fully revealed, so once in a while I found myself re-reading passages and flipping back and forth to try and clear things up.  The writing is so beautiful, evocative, and inventive that I never minded dipping in and out of the book. 

The Curfew shines for me because of the language, the author’s otherworldly imagination and creativity, and the relationship between the father and daughter.  This novel is moving and mesmerizing, and I still recommend it to anyone who will listen.

Homeland

Homeland

Cory Doctorow

I wanted to write about Homeland for a couple of reasons.

·         First, I loved Little Brother, and Homeland is the sequel to that widely-praised book. (And did you see my signed copy?? ).

·         Second, I think the issues that Doctorow discusses in both books (and on his awesome website, craphound.com, and his tumblr, mostlysignssomeportents.tumblr.com/ and via his twitter feed: @doctorow) are important.  Technology, privacy, surveillance, authority, intelligence…. These subjects collide and intermingle and transform as you read.

Homeland picks up the story of Marcus Yallow, gutsy geek protagonist of Little Brother, as he becomes involved in a Wikileaks / Edward Snowden-type situation:  he is given millions of pages of digital documents that detail government and corporate corruption.  Should he release them all?  Some of them? All the while, of course, there are local and federal agencies trying to find the documents – and find Marcus. It’s a great game of cat and mouse that will almost certainly piss you off if you believe in personal freedom and the openness of the internet.  Some of it will sound like conspiracy theory until you read about the latest NSA exposé…. 

Doctorow is probably the geekiest novelist I have ever read, and I say that with all respect! Reading Homeland I encountered treatises on a variety of tech / geek subjects.  Here’s a partial list of the subjects that Doctorow discusses and that sometimes sent me to Google:

·         Burning Man

·         cold-pressed coffee (which I have to try!)

·         3-D printing techniques

·         drones (or UAVs)

·         HERFS

·         “astroturf” political movements

·         keyfiles

·         darknet sites

·         BitTorrents

·         mic checks

·         and more

I have a lot to learn about these issues, I know.  But after I have been reading Doctorow, I feel both smarter and more curious. That's a good reading experience.

Doctorow makes most of his books available as free downloads at his craphound site.   He practices what he preaches about the availability of “content” and freedom of information.  He really seems concerned about the tensions between personal freedoms and over-reaching government control. 

All of this is why it is especially poignant that he has an afterword in Homeland from Aaron Swartz, a tech genius (by most accounts) and innovator (helped to develop RSS feeds and co-founded reddit) who had similar concerns about issues of surveillance, privacy and technology.  Tragically, Swartz killed himself while awaiting trial for illegally downloading a large number of scholarly articles from M.I.T.   There’s more information here and elsewhere, but know that when the hard-cover edition of Homeland was published on February 5^th, 2013, Swartz had been dead for only a few weeks.  Seeing his comments in Homeland was affecting and chilling, honestly. Swartz ends his afterword by challenging his readers to “change the system” and offering, in his final words: “Let me know if I can help.”  It is ridiculously sad that his offer, which included his email address, could never be honored.

 Swartz was awaiting trial for trying to “free information,” and Doctorow writes about the myriad decisions weighed by people – including Marcus Yallow -- who have access to classified information, information that may have been obtained legally or illegally.  If any of these subjects interest you, I can recommend Little Brother and Homeland without reservation.

Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk

Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk

Ben Fountain

I’ve read a number of books about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past few years, and this is one of the best.  Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, Hastings’ The Operators, and Finkel’s Thank You For Your Service (all nonfiction) are all insightful and tremendous.  I recommend Where Men Win Glory to my students all the time, and I may have to write a blog post about the heart-breaking Thank You For Your Service.  But I do love fiction, and sometimes a fictionalized story can crystalize themes and conflicts better than a nonfiction tale can.  I think that’s the case with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk.  This novel, a National Book Award finalist, made me think about how we use our military, the effects of war, and most of all, America’s relationship with its military. 

A short summary:  Billy Lynn, member of Bravo Company, is involved along with the rest of his Company in an intense fire-fight in Iraq.  The horror of the scene – and the bravery of the soldiers – is all captured by a TV crew, and because of this Bravo becomes a celebrated fighting unit.  Seizing on the publicity, the Army sends the men back to the United States for a victory lap of sorts.  Their last stop is at Cowboy Stadium on Thanksgiving.  The entire action of the novel, except for some flashbacks, takes place on this oversized spectacle of a Thanksgiving Day.

Some thoughts:  It’s a funny, brutal, heart-wrenching book.  It caused me to reflect on what we as a country are doing to the very, very, young men that we send to war.  (The youth of these soldiers – praised by their Sergeant as “the most murderous bunch of psychopaths you’ll ever see” – is evident on every page and makes their actions, and people’s reaction to them, even more poignant).  Despite their youth, though, the soldiers of Bravo are deferred to time and again because they’ve seen action, they’ve been involved in a famous fire-fight:  “Here in the chicken-hawk nation of blowhards and bluffers,” Fountain writes, “Bravo always has the ace of bloods up its sleeve.”

And so these soldiers, these 19 and 20 year old kids, have been to war, have seen death and caused death, and have become famous for it.  As a reward, they’re used as props in a halftime show and toyed with by the Hollywood and business-types who are looking to profit, somehow, anyhow, from the soldier’s fleeting celebrity.  Amazingly, the hero company has to go back to war in a few short days, a fact that surprises everyone who hears it.  At one point Billy and another soldier named Mango are getting high with one of the waiters and they tell him about the Company’s return to the battlefield.  The waiter is scandalized:

“The fuck! The fuck you gotta go back, after all you fuckin’ done, fuckin’ heroes?  Where’s the fuckin’ right in that? You guys done kicked your share a ass, whyn’t they let you just coast on out?”

Mango laughs. “The Army don’t work that way. They need bodies.”

I find the waiter’s speech to be hilarious (I love a good profanity-laced tirade) but it’s his outrage that I relate to the most.  How much more can we ask of them?  How can we use them even further?  Have we wrung every last bit of value from these kids?

Billy struggles with returning to war – especially after forming a close connection with a Dallas Cowboy cheerleader! – and ultimately has a decision to make about his future both in and out of the military. 

I loved following Billy as he wrestles with his future, and I feel like I could write about the characters and scenes and themes in this book for about ten thousand words.  I won’t, though.  At least for now.  There are other books to read!