A Reader's Respite has come up with the brilliant idea for a The Catcher In The Rye read-a-long as a way to say goodbye and pay tribute to J.D. Salinger.
I've felt different ways (admiring, puzzled, exasperated) about Holden Caulfield since I first read the book at the age of 14, but I've always loved him.
The goddam discussion about all the madman stuff that happened to Holden (as well as some of that David Copperfield crap about his life) begins on February 20. If you're not a phony or a moron or about as sensitive as a toilet seat, you might consider joining. I'll be there -- unless I fall off a crazy cliff or something.
I haven't been blogging much lately here. There are two reasons:
1. I started another blog, Bybee's Bookish Past. It's my reading history since 1993, which is as far back as I can go. At this writing, I'm up to 1997. It's astounding and humbling to see how much I've read and forgotten.
2. I took a little jaunt to Fukuoka, Japan. I was tagging along with my son, who was getting his work visa.
26 hours in Japan isn't really enough time to see the sights, so I decided to do what I do best and go bookstore hunting. If I had to walk a bit, I wasn't fussed about it. Walking down the sidewalks in Fukuoka (and maybe the rest of Japan?) isn't quite as tension-filled as walking in Seoul and other cities in Korea. There's absolutely no shoving or bumping, and there are just as many pedestrians. So I could wander in my somewhat dreamy fashion, looking for a particular location.
At first I couldn't find the place I sought, but bookworm is my name and bookstores are my game, so it was bound to happen. While standing at a crosswalk, I finally saw the sign across the street from Tower Records*: MARUZEN. What a nice name -- it almost rhymes with "Susan". Definitely a good omen.
Spanning 3 floors, Maruzen's foreign books section was located on the 5th floor. There was a really nicely organized section of books about Japan and Japanese fiction. I was looking for some Murakami nonfiction, but no joy. I also couldn't find the Yukio Mishima novel I wanted, TheSailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea. I moved on to the main English-language books section.
Just for fun, I decided to stop by the audiobooks, and I found a treasure I'd been hunting for: Great Expectations read by Hugh Laurie!!! Yes, it's abridged and I know what I said about abridged books, but it wasn't a hard call to make. You'll never catch me leaving Hugh Laurie to languish on some shelf. Besides, Dickens can take a little trimming and still come out all right.
The fiction section ranged from trashy bestsellers to pretty nice literature. Most of the selections were things I'd already read, but I was pleased to find a copy of Janet Frame's posthumously-published novel, Towards Another Summer. She wrote the novel in 1963, but considered it too personal to be published during her lifetime. If you've ever read Frame's autobiography, that's pretty hard to imagine.
Exploring further, I found a series of books called Rough Guides and happily seized The RoughGuide To Classic Novels. How could I resist that cute picture of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses? This list is impressive, staggeringly so. The usual suspects are present and Simon Mason suggests literature from a total of 32 countries. Thumbing through the book at the store, I saw a mention of Icelandic literature, and knew that he was really casting the net wide. Satisfied, I added it to my pile. Like the cherry on top of a perfectly assembled banana split, Mason adds a screen adaptation tie-in. Perfect for the Read The Book, See The Moviechallenge.
What I liked best about Maruzen was the Penguin Books section, which was a mixture of old and modern Penguin classics. This is where I could really see how Japan goes more for the British angle when it comes to literature -- I saw a good many authors that I haven't seen in my bookstore roaming here.
While I was blissfully combing the shelves, the sweetest little announcement came over the PA in English. A woman's soft voice cozily welcomed customers to Maruzen, detailed which books were located on which floor and wished us a pleasant shopping experience. I smiled broadly and even my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm's innards got all marshmallowy with delight.
When I went to the cashier to pay for my three books, she had me fill out a form for a discount card. "No, she lives in Korea," my son protested. The cashier and I both smiled: So what? While I was writing down my information, she folded book covers onto my books that have a map of Japan and all the different places Maruzen is located.
As you can probably see, I'm feeling the urge to go back to Japan soon -- does anyone else want a tag-along on his or her visa run?
* I also bought something at Tower Records: A Woody Guthrie compilation. I've got some Depression-era reading on the TBR and I thought Guthrie's music would make a suitable musical accompaniment.
I finished another reading journal -- that's my second one since 1993. This one lasted 10 years, from Jan. 1, 1999 to December 31, 2009. Wait...that's almost 11 years, right? My math skills are shaky, but however you slice it -- it was a damn good long run. This journal might have lasted longer if I hadn't moved to Korea. Once I moved here, my reading rate as well as my book greed skyrocketed and before I knew it, the pages were getting sparse.
My reading journal and I have been back and forth across the ocean several times, and to many locations in the United States. I've recorded what I've read from front to back, and from back to front, I've added feverishly to my wishlist. In 2003, I started breaking my reading down month-by-month. In 2007, I began keeping extended stats. It's all there, between the (quite attractive and durable) covers. It's still beautiful, isn't it? I still remember the day I bought it -- December 11, 1998. That was my 37th birthday and I had been let loose in a Barnes & Noble in Kansas City with 2 or 3 gift cards.
Even though I've started a new reading journal, I'm having trouble letting this one go. I carry it everywhere. I put it on my shelf; I take it down again and turn the pages, alternately smiling and rolling my eyes at my reading patterns over the years. Was there really ever a time that Atlas Shrugged was on my wishlist?
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I don't remember feeling so attached to the 1993-1998 journal -- you'd think that would be the one I'd be all sentimental about.
OK, back on the shelf now. Take a rest; you've earned it.
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[Thanks to Veronica from BOOKLEAVES and my son for the photos!]
Daydreams and Nightmares: Reflections on a Harlem Childhood
Author:
Irving Louis Horowitz
Fiction or Nonfiction?
Nonfiction. Memoir. Winner of the 1990 National Jewish Book Award.
What led you to pick up this book?
Horowitz's memoir covers the 1930s and early 40s in Harlem. I'm interested in that period of American history and this also seemed like a fresh perspective.
Summary:
Daydreams and Nightmares is Horowitz' memoir of "growing up absurd" (i.e., Jewish) in Harlem. His parents immigrated from Russia in the 1920s. His father came to America first, followed several years later by his mother and his older sister. His father owned a small locksmith shop. According to Horowitz, "...based on crude but not unsound reasoning, my father decided to settle in Harlem because of high crime rates -- windows were always being broken, locks were constantly being picked. Small tinkering was a needed skill."
Soon after the family was reunited, Irving Louis Horowitz was born in 1929. He was born with a cleft palate and a harelip, which made several years of surgeries necessary. Horowitz claims that he received excellent care at Sydenham Hospital in Harlem, attended by highly trained and skilled doctors who were fleeing Europe. "I was a beneficiary of fascism." he writes. He also said that while he was in the hospital during these times, things at home were easier for his family because they didn't have to be bothered with looking after him or feeding him.
Horowitz returns to this theme often, writing in varying degrees about "the coldness of family life." At first glance, it would seem typical and understandable, since the parents were struggling to make their way in a completely new world, but Horowitz points to his father's brother's family, who immigrated to Argentina (by mistake -- they thought South America meant the southern United States, like Georgia or Alabama) but that family constantly exhibited affection and laughter.
Horowitz discusses being terrorized by black kids in Harlem; day-long performances on weekends by extraordinary talent at the Apollo; how Central Park seemed to be some sort of special turf where all classes and races seemed to tacitly agree to get along; his devotion to the New York Giants and his adventures as a turnstile boy and later a scalper; Saturdays at the movies where he could see six features for ten cents and finally, the 1943 Harlem Riot, which took place in August after an African-American soldier was shot and wounded by a white New York City policeman. Hundreds of businesses were looted and destroyed, including Irving's father's store. Shortly thereafter, the Horowitzes moved to Brooklyn, where Irving had to learn to file down some of his survivalist, street-smart edges to fit in with his new friends.
What did you like best about this book?
In the preface, Horowitz declares that he used George Orwell's memoir essays as a model. He admired the way Orwell wrote unsentimentally and unromantically about childhood. Horowitz was successful in what he set out to accomplish.
What did you like least about this book?
So interesting but so short! (116 pages) Daydreams and Nightmares is of course meant to cover Horowitz's childhood in Harlem. I was glad that he went a little further as he discussed the difficulty to transitioning to Brooklyn, then his early years at City College, but I became so interested in his story I wanted a longer biography that extended into his adult years.
Share a quote:
Above all, the movies set Saturday apart from the rest of the week. Saturday meant life, reality, action. The films, even the deadliest of them, touched my heart in ways that school never could. Saturday was a daydream and nightmare combined in a singular, intensely private experience. Thus to be deprived of a Saturday at the movies was more than a cultural deprivation; it was a form of punishment unparalleled in my young life.
Horowitz wrote that on the average, he was able to get his father to give him the dime for the movies about 2 Saturdays out of 5. One week, when he couldn't get the money, he decided to take matters into his own hands while he was working the cash register:
Stealing in Harlem was a way of life -- an act of faith in the viability of the operating system itself. The test of character was doing so artfully, brilliantly, so that no one ever knew.
Unfortunately, his father caught him and for punishment, he tied Irving to the hot-water pipe and beat him severely:
The word spanked sounds so genteel, so perfectly bourgeois; beating across my bare ass more aptly describes what happened.
Horowitz can also be wickedly funny. In another incident, the father decided that a guard dog would be a good idea for the store, so he brought home a German Shepherd, Rex. Irving and the dog bonded, but the father decided to "put the dog in its place" by beating him. Predictably, Rex turned on him. The father then set out to "lose" Rex in Central Park. He failed; actually, the dog beat the family back home. Finally, in 1940, he was successful in ditching Rex while Irving was at summer camp. Irving was furious and inconsolable when he got home and realized what had happened. Fast-forward to 1973. Irving's mother and father were visiting him and his family. Irving got the word that there was a German Shepherd nearby available to a good home. The reason? The father in that particular family didn't care for the dog. Everyone piled in the car to go get the dog. When Irving came out with the dog, who was a dead-ringer for Rex, his father "blanched and was quiet during the ride home", much to Irving's grim amusement.
Have you read any other books by this author?
No, I wasn't even familiar with Irving Louis Horowitz.
After reading this book, do you plan to read other books by this author?
Horowitz has done most of his work in political sociology. He researched and wrote about the influence of Korean evangelist Sun-Myung Moon (whose university is just down the road from mine!) and the Unification Church on American politics. I would be be very interested in reading about that particular connection.
I'm still reading and enjoyingMoby-Dick, but I'm only halfway through my voyage. I'll take a short break and put up my notes on a nonfiction book I read last fall. They were scrawled on a single sheet of notebook paper that's bound to get lost if I don't do something.
The Man Who Made Lists: Love, Death, Madness and the Creation of Roget's Thesaurus - Joshua Kendall (2008).
I borrowed this book from a coworker. It's a vivid portrait of Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869). Known primarily for his Thesaurus, he was also a physician, invented the log-log slide rule, and published The Bridgewater Treatise, a 2-volume survey of physiology/natural theology. Poe and Emerson both loved Bridgewater and Tennyson consulted it often while writing In Memoriam.
As a doctor, Roget spent some time in Manchester where he worked for John Ferrier, the supervisor at the Manchester Infirmary. (Ferrier is also famous for coining the word "bibliomania".) Manchester was a nasty, dirty place -- pollution from the factories and outbreaks of cholera made it an undesirable city in which to live. Ferrier and Roget worked tirelessly to battle filth and disease and educate the public about safe and sanitary practices.
To unwind and get his mind off of his job, Roget worked on a word list that he had started back in childhood. According to this biography, making lists had always been his coping mechanism. Roget was shy and a bit on the gloomy side. His father died when he was a small boy and his mother was overbearing and paranoid. Young Roget was also attracted to science, so classifying and making lists seemed to go hand-in-hand and produced a calming effect on him.
The Man Who Made Lists is an engaging read. Kendall has a clear and straightforward style. Some of the scientific information could have been deadly reading -- obviously Kendall had to wade through an ocean of 18th century science writing, but he makes it interesting and appealing to modern readers. He also connects Roget to the other famous figures of his day. Some are still well-known now, others not so much. Kendall briefly but meticulously sketches in the necessary biographical detail.
.Although Roget was involved in a plethora of activities during his long life -- he wrote a thesaurus in 1805, but didn't publish it until 1852 when he was past 70 -- Kendall carefully traces how everything he did eventually led up to his most famous work. One of the ways he accomplishes this is with his chapter headings -- each one is an entry from the Thesaurus.
Kendall's writing is lively and accessible, but sometimes he gets a little too breezy. Certain phrases, which are straight from our time create a jarring shift in tone that is an variance with the subject and his time: "his smarts" and "crank out the syllabus" are a couple of examples.
.Also, Kendall often attributes certain thoughts to Roget without attribution. The index is good, but there are no notes or bibliography. Both should have been provided. In addition, he belabors the point about Roget's mother -- Okay, yes, we get it -- she WAS overbearing, she DID have a few mental problems! Finally, that subtitle is a little too overly dramatic. I'm almost sure that Kendall had nothing to do with that -- it reeks of committee meeting.
Overall, I recommend The Man Who Made Lists. I'd like to see a book in a similar vein about Noah Webster, and I nominate Joshua Kendall for the job.
I was going to blame all of this on Eva because she brought it all to the front of my mind again, but really, I can't fault her for things that started before she was born.
In the summer of 1985, I began to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, I was going to graduate. Filled with hopeful joy (joyous hope?) I signed up for two upper-level English classes: "The American Renaissance" (Emerson, Hawthorne and Melville) and "Seminar: Jane Austen" (all 6 of Austen's novels, including the juvenalia and her uncompleted work).
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Before the 8 weeks was up, I had severe eyestrain, a perpetual headache and for the first time in my life, I hoped never to read so much as a recipe or the back of a cereal box for as long as I lived.
Luckily, I had a few weeks to get my mind right before the fall semester started and I would be taking a once-a-week night class called "The American Novel". The class was a decade-by-decade look at some of the greatest hits in American Literature. The professor presented us with our reading list on the first evening. My eye fell on the first two items with dismay:
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. The House of the Seven Gables
Melville, Herman. Moby-Dick
Aaaarrrgh! I was stuffed to the gills with those two! Luckily, I had read The House ofthe Seven Gables in the "American Renaissance" class. Moby-Dick was a different matter. We'd read (and read and read!) practically everything by Melville in that same class -- Typee, Billy Budd, The Confidence-Man and the one I hated most of all: Pierre -- but no Moby-Dick.
No way. No more. I decided that I would read all of the other books on the list with great care and attention, but not Moby-Dick. I was still pissed at Melville for Pierre. If readers could break up with writers, then we were quits. Splitsville. In the end, I bought the Cliff Notes for Moby-Dick and watched the 1956 John Huston movie with Gregory Peck as Ahab and that was as far as I was willing to go for Melville.
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Until now.
I still cringe at the thought of Pierre and since there's a copy of it in my library, I have the opportunity to cringe before that as well, but all distasteful cringing aside -- Hermie, I'm not angry anymore! I haven't been in some time. When I read last month
that Eva was reading Moby-Dick, I resolved that now was the time to kiss and make up with Melville.
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2010 will be my year to rectify a literary wrong and read this 1851 classic. Eager to strike while the resolution was hot, I found a copy last weekend at What The Book? and it's up next in my reading queue.
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How strange...I almost typed Queequeg instead of queue.
Thanks to my Tough & Cool Inner Bookworm, the whole blogiverse now knows where I stand as far as last year's reading goes. Baby, I can't please you. She's back in the closet and the door is firmly bolted, but at diminishing intervals, I'll hear a sudden, muffled cry: "Wollstonecraft!" Good idea, Tuffi, but give it a rest for now. I've got bookish promises to make and miles to go before I ... oh, never mind. Here are my resolutions for 2010:
1. Read for charity. This resolution is still a little half-baked. For every book I read, I'm going to award myself 1,000 won, roughly the equivalent of 1.00 USD. (I'll have 2 bucks by the end of today.) At the end of the year, the money will go to some non-profit literacy organization. I hope I can find one that specializes in literacy for second-language learners. I haven't solicited anyone to sponsor me, but a couple of my friends have pledged to match what I've accomplished.
2. Read 100+ books. I've done this for 2 years in a row now, so I know it's possible. This goal ties in nicely with resolution #1. Plus, I get this...rush when I pop up to triple digits. Whoo.
3. Complete all my challenges:
100+ Books Challenge
Support Your Local Library Challenge (50 books this time)
2010 Canadian Book Challenge
Read The Book, See The Movie Challenge
The Pulitzer Project
4. Read more books published before 1900. You see, Tuffi? I care.
5. Read internationally. I confess -- this one is difficult for me. I love books published in my native country. Heart, heart, heart, heart. I seem to fall into them the way hungry people fall into McDonald's at mealtime. Is that any way for an expat bookworm to behave? I must develop a plan.
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6. Get caught up on my book reviews. Even if I have to put up my piecemeal notes or render everything into haiku, I will present an account of what I've been reading these past few months.
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Six is an odd number of resolutions, but it'll have to do.
Bybee had a sudden craving for mandu so she went out and I haven't seen her since. Perhaps she's snowbound somewhere. Perhaps it wasn't a longing for mandu. She knows full well that it's time to cast a glacial eye at which resolutions she kept and didn't keep in 2009 and I think she just wants to protect those big meaty knuckles from a well-deserved rap or two.
Bybee's Bookish Resolutions for 2009:
1. "CompleteMiddlemarch." Hmm, nothing to fault her about here. I will briefly mention that she started the book in early January and didn't finish it until March 6.
2. "Finish the Canadian Book Challenge." Bybee did this as well and I'm pleased with her for completing the Anne of Green Gables series. I'll even be magnanimous and ignore that little burp with Anne of Windy Poplars. But she's only completed 3 books for the 2010 Canadian Challenge. She'd better get busy or before she realizes it, Canada Day will be upon her like the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens on a hockey puck.
3. "Read more Pulitzers." Tsk. Bybee only read 3 Pulitzers this year. I really don't care, since I'm a 19th-century kind of gal myself, but you'd think after all that feverish hunting and gathering she'd apply herself to that particular shelf a little more.
4. "Make frequent use of the library at my new university." Bybee's made frequent use of the library, but is frequent synonymous with good? Yes, it's true that she checked out The ScarletLetter in August and read it with surprising gusto, but I weep bitterly to think of all those classics she continually (and willfully) passes up. I've lost count of the times my heart's been broken as she just whooooooshed by all those lovely Henry James novels and galumphed into the nonfiction section.
5. "Complete the Well-Seasoned Reader Challenge." Bybee finished this challenge on time and with no difficulty. Hmph. Only 3 books somehow relating to food, and you know Bybee and food...! But since we're on the subject of challenges, let's talk about the Eco Reading Challenge. Trust me, if Bybee could hear this, she'd have both hands clamped over her fleshy ears singing lalalala. Yes, it's true -- she only read 3 out of the 4 books she pledged for the challenge and one of them was finished after September 1. Fail.
6. "Study Korean." Her reading is progressing slowly and she's picked up a handful of new vocabulary. After 5 years, she might know almost as many words as a Korean toddler. I cringe that she's not more aggressive about self-improvement.
7. "Keep challenges manageable." Bybee kept this resolution for the most part, but I don't quite approve of it. So many new and exciting challenges involving opportunities to read 19th (and older!) century books emerged and poor little Susan was all, wah wah wah...I'm too busy. Busy watching How I Met Your Mother and reading back issues of Us magazine, I'd say!
8. "Be less of a slob about writing reviews." Ooooooooh. I'm thinking of someone whose name starts with B (and it's not Bronte) who has taken up permanent residence on Slob Street in Slobville in the Land of Slob. I must whisper this next bit of shameful news: She's 20 reviewsbehind! I thought this unfortunately-named blog was a book blog. Am I missing something?
9. "Read more internationally." Sigh. Pass the aspirin. Bybee squandered so many opportunities to bake two cakes with one oven. I'm thinking Don Quixote. I'm thinking about Dumas and Hugo. What about Boccaccio? I can't go on; I've got a burning feeling in my chest like Dante's Inferno. It's not the coffee.
10. "Let nonfiction rule this year." Well, it didn't. The final score was 56-48, fiction. I could care less, especially since I just heard the elevator open and Bybee's voice in the hallway humming Non, je ne regrette rien off-key, but I would like to quickly point out that there's a lot of fine old nonfiction around. Pepys' diary. Life On The Mississippi. Between Marcus Aurelius and Machiavelli, she could have a really nice time. Wouldn't anyone?
