September 2010: Buying

Only 3 this month. I'm kind of impressed with my restraint. Of course, July and August were huge. Restraint is probably more properly called exhaustion.

Dancing On The Earth - Margaret Laurence. After reading The Diviners, I got interested in Laurence. When I saw her memoir, I jumped. Literally. It was resting on a shelf pretty high up, almost out of my reach.

After Dark, My Sweet - Jim Thompson. When I see a Jim Thompson novel, I feel as if candy is being dangled in front of me. Except if it really was candy, it would have some ominous ingredient like poisonous mushroom or deadly nightshade and the person dangling it in front of me would be some creepy figure that burned up the road to Hell years ago.

The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon. The BOOKLEAVES pick for October. I don't know if I'll like it, but I'm all about boosting my international reading stats.

Real Life vs. Read Life

Faaarrrrgghhh!

It's happening again, except this time we're slated to discuss The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which is a bookish book about books and booksellers and...O the agony.

I wasn't sure about the 2 conflicting events on October 9/10 when I was at the BOOKLEAVES meeting last week, but I did have a funny feeling:

Well, I can't skip book group. As much as I love the Readathon, I'd feel like an ass if I passed up Real Life for Read Life. I'll participate as best as I can, then one free weekend this fall when I'm coin-foraging-broke before payday, I'll have a private little readathon with all the nice Newbery titles I've got stockpiled.

But still: Damn.

Thanks to Veronica for the photo.

I Want A Banned Book!

Holy Huck! I didn't realize that it was time for Banned Books Week again and time to celebrate my freedom to read. This issue has such clarity for me that the defiance flowing through my veins gives me a feeling of euphoria. At times like these, I wish that everything on my shelf -- the bought as well as the borrowed -- was banned.

I'd like to thank my parents for never restricting my reading, even when my choices got pretty edgy. I passed this freedom on to my son. Hope he keeps the chain going.

The first time I heard of books being banned, I thought it was an 'olden-days' thing. Too soon I learned that it is, unfortunately, a most decidedly modern tactic used by what I now affectionately refer to as The Knuckle Draggers Amongst Us. I was incredulous, then I got really mad. That progression of feelings is still with me as I scan my shelves fiercely for something banned to read. I've got three on hand that I haven't read yet, so there you have my reading for this week:

1. The Giver

2. The Naked and the Dead

3. American Psycho

For years, I demanded to know why and how each book got banned. Now I don't care. No reason is good enough. There should be no lists of that kind. We shouldn't have to call attention to these lists by having this week.

To those who believe in reading freedom and fight the good fight against banning, I lift my glass to you.

To those who believe that banning is the way to go, I'd like to lift something else.

What, Ho?

I really love Abebooks. Ever since I bought The Plump Pig for my mom last summer, they're onto me. They've got my number. They know how to directly and shamelessly appeal to the Odd Shelfer in me. There's all that marvelous old treasure. I'm hopelessly dazzled; I just want to live and wander on their website forever. Give me a pup tent, some tins of mustard-flavored sardines, saltine crackers, ginger ale and a photo of Hugh Laurie. I could be happy.

Here's a recent email they sent that features their latest idea for 'theme reading' which sent me running for my pen and wishlist.

The introduction and the book descriptions are the work of abebooks. After each book description, I have a brief comment about whether I'd pick up the book if I met it on a street corner somewhere.

Street Reading: World's Oldest Profession in Fiction

The members of the world’s oldest profession have been portrayed in many ways through fictional literature over the centuries, including the temptress, the fallen woman, the hooker with a heart of gold and the tragic victim.

The Greeks, the Romans, the Elizabethans and the Victorians were particularly fascinated by prostitutes although modern novelists keep returning to prostitution themes again and again. Our selection has tried to steer clear of erotica (although John Cleland’s Fanny Hill can be considered an early example of pornography in English prose) and the countless pulp paperbacks from the 1950s and 1960s that feature hookers. This list includes the likes of Emile Zola, Charles Dickens, Jack Kerouac, Mario Llosa Vargas, William T. Vollmann and Paulo Coelho.

Working girls often appear as supporting characters – such as Lorena Wood in Lonesome Dove, Bianca in Othello, Sandy and Candy from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Belle Watling in Gone With the Wind - but many writers have used a prostitute as their central character and attempted to provide an insight into sex and life on the Game.

Courtesans, streetwalkers, call-girls, escorts, hookers, madams, fallen women, scarlet women and ladies of the night – call them what you will, but prostitutes are continue to be a recurring theme in literature.

25 Prostitute-Themed Novels

The Bitter Orange Tree - Istrati Panait.
A hard-to-find novel from 1931, this love triangle features two men and a prostitute.

Oh, abebooks! You tempters...you drive me mad with stuff like '1931' and 'hard-to-find'. I like that title, too. Never heard of this author.

Fanny Hill - John Cleland.
This infamous novel about an 18th century prostitute is also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure.

The last time I saw this book was in one of those miniature editions. I almost bought it because I was in a short-lived 18th-century mood, but I ultimately resisted it. The size would make it uncomfortable to read and something so dainty would surely get dogged up in a hurry.

Man and Wife - Beth Brown
A risqué thriller (the mob, detectives etc) from 1933 later reprinted as The Profession of Marie Simon.

Oooh, more early 1930s reading! Sounds a little noir-ish. The later title change seems an improvement.

Last Nights of Paris - Philippe Soupault
Published in English in 1929, a prostitute struggles to save Paris. Soupault was an early surrealist.

More early 20th century and French to boot. And surrealism. I am so there!

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Nana - Emile Zola.
From 1880, Nana goes from street girl to high-class hooker. Things go badly for the men who pursue her.

I read this at a time when Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were all front-page news for their misbehavior. Nana reminded me of them -- the good looks but dearth of talent and the way Nana would move into a mansion and trash it so badly that she had to move out only months later. This book and the character it was based on make a brief appearance in the 1938 movie Paul Muni movie about Zola's life. She's quite sanitized there.
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To Beg I Am Ashamed - Sheila Cousins
Supposed co-written by Graham Greene, this is a fictitious ‘autobiography’ of a London prostitute.

Hmm...Graham Greene. Isn't that title odd, with the awkward infinitive form tacked on the front?

The Mistress George C. Foster
This Jazz Age novel from 1930 illustrates how thoughts on sexuality were changing.

I'm beguiled by this one, too. I like the cover. You could park an airplane on that expanse of white shoulder.

Last Exit to Brooklyn Hubert Selby Jr
This controversial novel from 1964 features two prostitutes - Georgette, a transvestite, and Tralala.

My hazy recollection is that this book was made into a movie? Is that right? Also, why does Rosie O'Donnell come to mind?

Oliver Twist Charles Dickens
Nancy, Sikes' girlfriend, is a key character in his unromantic portrayal of Victorian crime and poverty.

Now that I've finally learned to love Charles Dickens (Great Expectations was my gateway drug), maybe I should give Oliver Twist a go.

Tristessa Jack Kerouac
A novella from 1960, set in Mexico, about a drug addicted impoverished prostitute.

I'm a little meh about Kerouac. I want to like him better, though. Maybe a novella? Something in which Dean Moriarty is not a character? Seems promising.

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My Little Sister - Elizabeth Robins.
Published in 1913, this scarce novel addresses prostitution and white slavery in London.

I'm interested in reading the older stuff because I want to know how far they could go at the time to push the boundries of what was acceptable in print.

Gracia - a Social Tragedy Frank Everett Plummer
Published in 1900 by radical publisher Charles H. Kerr, this is a tale of fallen women, told entirely in verse.

In verse? Oh, dear. I don't know.

Boule de suif - Guy de Maupassant.
The inspiration for John Ford’s Stagecoach movie - prostitute Boule de Suif and others flee to Le Havre.

I would never have connected de Maupassant and John Wayne! Dang! Cool!

Yama: The Pit A Novel in Three Parts - Alexandre Kuprin.
A Russian novel translated into English in 1929 – a powerful epic about prostitution in Russia.

Grittiness knows no borders. And it's cold in Russia --gotta do something to stay warm.

In the Company of the Courtesan - Sarah Dunant.
Set in 1527, a famed courtesan Fiammetta Bianchini takes her business from Rome to Venice.

BOOKLEAVES read this one. I enjoyed those descriptions of Venice and the narration of the dwarf.

The Blue Note Book - James A. Levine.
Levine’s debut novel from 2000. An Indian girl is sold into the sex trade at the age of nine.

I'm squeamish about reading about children and sex, so I don't know. I don't think so.

The Green House Mario Vargas Llosa.
The Peruvian author’s second novel, translated in 1968, about a brothel on the edge of town.

I've never read any Mario Vargas Llosa. This looks like a good place to start.

Whores for Gloria William T. Vollmann.
Published in 1991, a Vietnam vet searches for a beautiful street prostitute who may or may not exist.

Vollmann's name seems familiar...have I read anything else by him? I love the assonance of this title. The Vietnam vet aspect puts me off a little.

Eleven Minutes Paulo Coelho.
A young Brazilian girl travels to Switzerland and joins a brothel, and then meets a painter.

I think my friend Veronica has read this book. Although Paulo Coelho is decidedly not one of my favorites, I meant to ask her how she liked it. I'm worried that it would be typical Coelho, chock-full of parables and cardboard characters.

My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time - Liz Jensen.
A time-travelling whore? A 19th century Copenhagen prostitute goes to 21st century London.

Another great title! Time travel! Yay!

Hundred Dollar Baby - Robert B. Parker.
A Spenser mystery from 2006 - the Boston private eye is asked to help a call girl.

I don't care for mysteries, but I've heard that the Spenser series is really good.

The Dress Lodger - Sheri Holman.
A novel set in 1831 Sunderland in a cholera epidemic - Gustine turns to the Game in desperation.

I'd like to read this one and pair it with a nonfiction book on my wishlist called The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, which is about the siege of cholera in London during the 19th century and how public health officials finally figured out how to fix the problem.

The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
Sugar is a 19-year-old working in a brothel, who yearns for a better life in Victorian London.

I've been shying away from this novel since 2004, mostly because of its size. I shouldn't be so ridiculous; I'm sure I'd like it.

Let the Great World Spin - Colum McCann.
McCann’s novel from 2009 features the trial of a New York City prostitute.

This goes on that subcategory of my wishlist, known as the Mos Def wishlist.

Streetwalker - Anonymous (Jonathan Gash).
Supposed be a memoir from a London prostitute but it is really Gash’s debut novel.

I can't believe it...I read this! It was filed in the "deviant behavior" section of our library. I went through a brief stage at about 19 or 20 when I was strongly attracted to books of that kind. At the time, I thought it read pretty tidily for a memoir. The first part, which describes a typical day in the life is the best part, then it slides too rapidly into a cautionary tale.

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I definitely have round heels when it comes to this sort of thing. I can't help but wonder what abebooks will do next time to tempt me towards building an Odd Shelf.

Library Loot: Inspiration

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It's still too damn hot to make a proper visit to my library, but I can't stay away completely. Heather inspired me to climb those 118 steps a couple of days ago and brave the heat once more. In a recent post, she wrote about how she and her husband DNFed The Red Badge of Courage. Yep, they made Stephen Crane pack his Naturalist bags and exit their audiobook world.

In a flash of what seems to be reverse psychology, I was inspired, seeing a chance to tackle two challenges at once -- the Support Your Local Library Challenge and the Book/Movie Challenge. As luck would have it, my son bought me the 1951 film version starring Audie Murphy for Mother's Day last year and I haven't watched it yet. I also figured that wouldn't hurt me to do a reread since I read this book rather hurriedly in 1986 when I took Dr. Larry Shanahan's American Novel class.

Furthermore -- not that this influenced my decision or anything -- The Red Badge of Courage was published in 1895, which I was sure would make my Tough & Cool Inner BookSnob happy. Instead of a delighted squeal of thanks, all I heard some snide murmuring about how Crane's first novel, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets was published two years earlier. Oh, Tuffi, stick it in your bustle! Bookbitch.

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Navigating swiftly in the stifling stacks, I located the sole copy of The Red Badge of Courage at my library. This printing has Korean footnotes explaining particular (or peculiar) expressions in the novel. They're a little distracting, but I'll manage:

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Note in the picture below that I wasn't exaggerating about the 118 steps. Now you can fully understand why I prefer to be greeted with air-conditioning when I get to the top, but I'll put up with pretty much anything...because...because... I love you, Library! Let's hug -- after the heat wave, of course.

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Hank Williams

I found myself getting a little emotional while reading this biography. Country singers will do that to me, I've noticed. It's not just that Hank Williams was only 29 when he died -- sick and exhausted and an alcoholic to boot. A lot of my sad feeling came from running to Youtube every time author Colin Escott went into detail about a song Hank recorded. As a result, I had a strong sense of immediacy, as if this was the first time I'd ever heard Hank sing. In some ways, it was.

I'm not the only one who had trouble holding back feelings. Author Colin Escott has massive sympathy for Hank Williams and heaps of scorn for the people in his life that didn't believe in him or saw him as the goose that laid the golden egg or as a springboard to their own careers. Most of the time, he's on the mark -- Williams' first wife and mother of Hank, Jr. deserved all his bitter (and often wickedly witty) comments and much more -- but sometimes he's quite unfair and mean-spirited with his speculations as in the case of Cowboy Copas, who, upon Hank's death "gave the performance of a lifetime, possibly sensing that there was an opening at the top." I was kind of surprised because Escott is English, and one would think he'd have incredible restraint, but from Audrey to Roy Acuff to Toby Marshall, the criminal doctor who hastened Hank's death with liberal prescriptions of chloral hydrate, Escott calls them like he sees them and takes no prisoners.

Escott was probably correct is when he wrote that Hank Williams came along at just the right time. If he had come along a few years earlier, he wouldn't have found that post-war, newly urban audience that was receptive to songs about heartbreak and cheating in addition to the folk music they'd grown up on back in rural America. If he'd come along a few years later, he would have been "too hillbilly" for slicked-up pop-attuned Nashville, who, by that time, was trying desperately to compete with the invasion and culture-changing onslaught of rock and roll.

One thing that's amusing is that Escott often comments on Hank's countryfied pronunciation -- he points out more than once that Hank pronounces "poor" as "purr". An American author probably wouldn't have focused on that with such clarity. (I noticed that in the There's a Tear in My Beer demo Hank says "mebbe" for "maybe" but I thought that was just the EFL teacher in me coming on strong.)

Although I discovered some Hank Williams songs I'd never heard before and listened to others with a fresh ear, my favorites are still the same: I Can't Help It (If I'm Still In Love With You) is still my favorite slow number (I found a short but really sweet version of Hank dueting with Anita Carter). I definitely got that old-time feeling.

Jambalaya narrowly edges out Hey Good Lookin' as my favorite of Hank Williams' upbeat numbers. I finally took the time to look at the lyrics to Jambalaya...for years, I couldn't make out the second line, "Me gotta go pole the pirogue (a boat like a canoe, I learned) down the bayou..." or the second verse's beginning, "The Thibodaux, the Fontaineaux, the place is buzzin'..." In the biography, Escott discusses how many of Hank's songs couldn't be recorded or had to be changed because references to alcohol and drinking wouldn't sit well with the more strait-laced audience. I was amused to notice that Hank slyly stuck a drinking reference in Jambalaya: "Pick guitar, fill fruit jar..."

The tale of the cigar store Indian Kaw-Liga irritated me the first time I heard it in second grade and still grates on my nerves all these years later. According to the book, Hank came up with the germ of the song and his producer and publisher, Fred Rose tarted it up with that absurd Hollywood-like war drum beat. Rose can also be blamed for the annoying minor-key verses that shift jarringly into a major-key chorus.

With all the music biopics that have come out in the past few years, one would think that a movie about Hank Williams' life would be a winning choice. Unfortunately, that was done in 1964 with a sorry effort (headed up by Audrey, who transforms herself into the heroine of Hank's life) called Your Cheatin' Heart. Although he would like to see Hank's story done again and better, Escott holds out little hope "because 4-5 different people and corporations with different agendas who often are in opposition must all sign off on the way Hank Williams is portrayed."

Hank Williams is an intense and engrossing biography that provides an interesting look at country music as we know it today as it transitioned from a strictly rural audience to include an urban one that still stubbornly clung to its roots and the haunted young artist who seemed to know exactly what the audiences needed and would burn both ends of the candle making sure they got it.

August, 2010: Sweating and Reading and Reading and Sweating

Ten books this month. Not bad, considering that my brain was slowly and systematically being melted in the hellish heat of my apartment (which, in retrospect fit in rather well with my Joyce Carol Oates and Jim Thompson outings). My best reading moments were on the subway and in the Dunkin' Donuts in Itaewon. Both locales were so nicely icy.

1. My Sister, My Love - Joyce Carol Oates. When I read an Oates novel, it feels as if my face is pressed too close to everything and Oates's prose just hammers and hammers away at you. But I keep coming back for more and have, since I was barely out of my teens. Oates's take on the JonBenet Ramsey case focuses on the shadowy figure of the slightly older brother, Skyler. Oates gives her version of the case a resolution -- the same way I always thought perhaps it played out in real life.

2. Royal Flash - George MacDonald Fraser. This was even more fun than the first book! A take-off of The Prisoner of Zenda.

3. Pop. 1280 - Jim Thompson. This novel is a later reworking of The Killer Inside Me, with the same theme of the affable small-town sheriff with a dark side. As always, I'm surprised by the flashes of real hilarity that show up in Thompson's nightmarish landscapes. In 1981, this book was made into a well-regarded French film called Coup de Torchon with the setting changed from West Texas to a colony in French West Africa.

4. Savage Night - Jim Thompson. Written in 1953, this is one of Thompson's stranger offerings. A hit man comes to a small college town in the east. He's a vicious killer on the lam who looks many years younger than his actual age and has a number of infirmities. In spite of the drawbacks to his health and appearance, in typical pulpy Thompson fashion, the babes in the book can't wait to get him into bed. On the other hand, Thompson's narrators are unreliable. This book had many disturbing images, but seemed to suffer from slow pacing then finally disintegrates into an incoherent mess that's meant to pass for surrealism.

5. The Getaway - Jim Thompson. This 1959 novel basically follows the plot of the 1972 movie starring Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw as Doc and Carol McCoy, bank robbers and murderers on the run. The writing is a little sloppy, but the pacing is good and Thompson's superb storytelling carries the reader along swiftly. Life on the lam is a little grittier for the McCoys -- they hide in a hollowed-out manure pile for days in one episode -- and reading about their ultimate fate (no warm and folksy Slim Pickens character here!) helps a reader to understand why Stephen King counted Jim Thompson as one of his influences. Of the three Thompson books I read this month, this was my favorite. I still want to read 3 more Thompson novels: A Hell of a Woman (1954), After Dark, My Sweet (1955) and The Grifters (1963).

6. Gone To An Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers - Anne Petrie. I wrote about this book and 3 others in my Canadian Challenge post.

7. The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz - Mordecai Richler. I raved about this in my Canadian post.

8. You Gotta Have Wa - Robert Whiting. This book about Japanese baseball is really more of a look at cultures colliding. I could really feel for the American baseball players who came to Japan to play and the immense culture shock that awaited them both on the field and off. Just change Japan to Korea and baseball to English teaching and you've pretty well got a glimpse into the life of an expat in Asia. I wish there was an updated version of this book; the baseball salaries that were so enticing sound so paltry now. Also, I'd like to see how many gaijin are playing in Japan these days.

9. The Diviners - Margaret Laurence. THE Canadian novel!

10. Piling Blood - Al Purdy. I'm not much for poetry, but I'm glad to discover Al Purdy.

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I'm pretty happy with my numbers for August. Returning to work and my busy schedule this semester threatens my quest for 100+, but I've signed up for the Readathon on October 9.

I Love You, Sweet Library -- But You're Too Stinking Hot For Me

I hadn't set foot in my beloved Bybee-ary since last spring, so after I sorted out my conversation class this morning, the L-word was very much on my mind.

I headed up the hill, sweating all the way, trying to dart from one small wedge of shade to another along the path, and feeling pathetically grateful for even a suggestion of breeze. The library would be an oasis from the muggy, oppressive heat. The stacks would be cool and shadowy. I would emerge hours later refreshed and rejuvenated with an armload of library loot.

The library loot part was right, but the library was just as bad as outside -- thick and unpleasant. I hoped that the sweat rolling off of me wouldn't make the floors too slippery. The stacks were suffocating. Tilting my head to look at titles gave me a headache tinged with nausea. I had to give up after only 10 minutes and 3 books:

Sea of Glory - Nathaniel Philbrick. This book is about the US Exploring Expedition, which went on for a few years in the late 1830s and early 1840s. I admired Philbrick's In The Heart of the Sea so much that I was instantly attracted to Sea of Glory.

Love and Death in the American Novel - Leslie A. Fiedler. I first saw this 1960 groundbreaking study of literature at Cameron University in Lawton, Oklahoma when I was about 19 years old. Beguiled by that title, I examined the table of contents, then shied away from it. I clearly remember what gave me pause: Charles Brockden Brown. I didn't know who he was. Therefore, I was not smart enough to read LADITAN. Wasn't I a skittish reader back in the day?! Now nearly [mumble] years later, I still don't have a good grip on who CBB was, but I now know that Fiedler will probably provide context and if it's not there, then I'll Google and have my answer in a moment.

Complete Novels - Dashiell Hammett. This volume includes Red Harvest, The Dain Curse, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man and The Glass Key. It's going to rain like hell starting tomorrow with a typhoon, so I anticipate good times and cozy hours curled up with Dash if the electricity holds out. If not, I have a couple of flashlights.

This loot is due back on October 1. The weather should be much improved by then and I'll come back to my library ready for a nice long visit.