Time Travel

For some reason, when I first heard of The Time Traveler's Wife, I didn't want to read it. I wouldn't even pick it up in the bookstore. For some reason, I was having vague images of some bad movie I saw. I think Charlize Theron was in it. I'm not sure why these images were attaching themselves to Niffenegger's book, but that's what was going on.

After a while, I was a little curious (there has been a lot of hype, and a movie will be made next year based on the novel) so I read the back cover blurbs. Then I began my usual circling for months and months and months. I found the copies published in the UK and read the Brit blurbs. Finally, on December 11, I celebrated my second consecutive "bookstore birthday" by adding The Time Traveler's Wife to the pile of books I would take home that day.

(I finally finished that Patrick White biography. I read that book for so long, I felt as if I was living his life right along with him in real time. By the time he died in 1989, at the end of the biography, I felt as if I, too, were seventy-something years old! I am eager to get some Patrick White novels and start reading them. I hope to read Voss or The Tree of Man or A Fringe of Leaves sometime in 2006.)

Anyway...I began reading The Time Traveler's Wife. At first, I had a slight headache at the shifts in viewpoint, and trying to track the times Henry and Clare meet and who knew who when, but then I realized that the author was just doing her job, making the reader feel their disorientation.

I'm halfway through the book now, and enjoying it except for a couple of minor gripes: Niffenegger describes a whole game of billards. This never works for me. Even when Don Robertson, who I revere, described an entire Cleveland Indians game in The Sum and Total of Now, I didn't care for it much. Also, there's a scene in which Clare and her sister are talking while watching It's A Wonderful Life, and Niffenegger continually references what's going on frame by frame. Yes, Audrey, I saw the movie, and I know you saw it, too. One or two references bookending the scene would've been okay, but the rest just seemed like so much filler.

These are just piddling complaints. I enjoy the inventive way the story is told, and continue to be intrigued with Henry's struggles as a man out of time, and the things he must do to survive the abrupt shifts that ambush him with hardly any warning.

Even though Henry's travels through time are usually sickening and often dangerous, I'm still inspired to dream about what I would do if I had Chrono-Displacement Disorder. I fantasize that I might land in the late 1920s, in a bookshop. I'd pick up a couple of freshly printed, spanking-new first editions of The Great Gatsby. I'd bring them to the present and sell one of them, and give the other to Manfred, Jr. to do as he liked. Then I'd pop up to 1936 and buy a nice copy of Gone With The Wind.

The Crooked Way We Come To Books

In the middle of PATRICK WHITE: A LIFE, I got waylaid by a novel called HONKYTONK MAN, by an Oklahoma native named Clancy Carlile. Even though I lived in Oklahoma many, many years, I had never heard of Carlile. What a pleasant find! It's strange that I had to come all the way to South Korea and find the novel which had languished in an Australian used bookshop before Pablo's friend bought it and gave it to him a couple of years ago. It languished on Pablo's bookshelf for those 2 years, then one day last week, he gave it away to me.

Readers who are also moviegoers will recognize HONKYTONK MAN as the title of a Clint Eastwood movie. This copy of the book was a movie tie-in, with Eastwood's picture on the cover. I was leery of the book at first, thinking it was a dreadful movie novelization, but no, HONKYTONK MAN was a novel first (1980) then a movie (1982).

HONKYTONK MAN is the story of country-and-western musician Red Stovall, who is loosely based on Jimmie Rodgers, "The Father Of Country Music". It's the mid-1930s, and the Dust Bowl days in Oklahoma are at their cruellest peak. Red Stovall shows up at his sister's home there broke, drunk, and sick. He's come from California and is trying to get to get to Nashville to audition for The Grand Ole Opry. He enlists the aid of his 14-year-old nephew, Whit, and soon they're off an a picaresque adventure with Whit's grandfather also in tow. One of the original participants in the 1889 Land Run, the grandfather has decided to return to Tennessee to die there.

I enjoyed this book much in the same way that I enjoyed ADDIE PRAY, a.k.a. PAPER MOON, another Depression-era road-trip/coming-of-age novel. Carlile didn't really accomplish anything new or groundbreaking with this novel. In fact, one scene between Whit and his grandfather is stagey and overwritten. But HONKYTONK MAN is a magical book for me because it's worked that strange alchemy that certain books work on me: It acted as a springboard to interest in other books.

After I finished HONKYTONK MAN, I was curious to learn more about Jimmie Rodgers, the real-life model for Red Stovall, so I went to amazon.com and found a book about Rodgers called JIMMIE RODGERS: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF AMERICA'S BLUE YODELER. I was able to preview some of the first chapter, and judging by casual references (e.g. driving down the road and Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue is playing on the car radio), it looked as if the book was written sometime in the late 1970s.

Further investigation revealed that it was written awhile back, [1979] but it was reprinted by a university press about 12 years ago, which means that it's probably no slouch when it comes to well-done research. Even better, the writing is fine and lively, not the usual dry and deadly stuff one associates with academia.

You guessed it: I really want this book!

But it doesn't stop there: The author of the Jimmie Rodgers book is Nolan Porterfield. The name rings a distant bell in my memory, but I'm damned if I could tell you why. Anyway, Porterfield is also a novelist, and he wrote a novel called A WAY OF KNOWING. Of this novel, written in 1971, a reviewer at amazon fervently wrote that Porterfield's novel would definitely fill the bill for those who like Larry McMurtry, and that in some ways, it was even better than McMurtry's stuff.

Well, I'm a big McMurtry fan, so that alone would be enough to pique my interest, but there's also the knowledge that Porterfield is a country music scholar! Furthermore, he, like McMurtry is from Texas. How could I go wrong??? I'm just downright jonesing for this book as well! It's time for a Lost Weekend that takes place at abe.books.com

Some of my fellow bookcrossers at bookcrossing.com have tidy, prescribed lists of what they'll read for the coming year. I can't do that. For one thing, it smacks of that tight-assed regimentation that is the hallmark of formal schooling. In addition, it doesn't seem to allow enough room for the almost mystical way you can find books...or books can find you. The most I can do is make up a rough list of my reading interests for the coming year, then wait with pleasure to see how and where and why I get waylaid.

Reading A Mystery

CanadaBoy's mother is so nice! She sent a box of books to CanadaBoy, and she included one for me. It's called Blow Fly. The author is Patricia Cornwell.

Slight problem: I really don't like mysteries very much. They're too plot-driven. When I'm reading fiction, I like it to be more character-driven. But I've heard great things about Patricia Cornwall and her creation, forensic scientist Dr. Kay Scarpetta. My interest is piqued. I'd like to give this mystery a try.

I'm worried that I'll have it at the back of my mind all the time that I'm reading ewww! a mystery, so I'm making plans to protect my enjoyment of the book against the twisted workings of my bookwormy mind. Since I really enjoy true crime (like Ann Rule's books for example) and other nonfiction, I'm going to go into Blow Fly with the idea that Dr. Kay Scarpetta is a real person, and that the case in this book is a real one.

This is a new and untested reading strategy for me, but it should work. Wish me luck! I'll report back when I've completed Blow Fly.

The 1961 Club

Ooops, I did it again! I bought a novel I had been circling for a few months: VERNON GOD LITTLE by DBC Pierre. What's not to like about this novel? An adolescent boy with a filthy mouth....yeah, that's right up my alley!

Another thing I noticed when I looked at the back of the book jacket is that DBC Pierre was born in 1961. That was the clincher. Because I was born in 1961, I feel compelled to read authors that were born in MY year.

It wasn't always that way. When I was in my mid-20s, I was jealous as hell of anyone my age or younger that had written a book. I'd pass by a book of David Leavitt's short stories in the library, take it off the shelf, scowl miserably at his birthdate, then re-shelve the book. You can imagine my reaction when Bret Easton Ellis (b. 1964) came out with LESS THAN ZERO!

I don't know when the jealousy went away. These days, I'm proud and pleased when I see a 1961 author: Douglas Coupland, Chuck Palahniuk, Laurie Halse Anderson, and now DBC Pierre. I'm sure there are more 1961 authors. I just need to find them.

Korea Bug

I found KOREA BUG at Incheon airport yesterday & I wasted no time running up to the register and giving the cashier my money. For a book this thick and this entertaining-looking, it felt as if I was stealing!

So far, I've only read the article about bbondegi and part of the introduction, but I know that I will really enjoy KOREA BUG. I'm already a big fan; that's how talented J. Scott Burgeson is!

My co-workers and friends are going to be crying and begging to borrow this book from me. Of course, I'll have to loan it out, although I'll be nervously monitoring its whereabouts.

J. Scott Burgeson's witty, informative, and thoughtful writing makes me realize how much I miss the days before blogs, when zines ruled.

Whether or not you're an expat, this BUG's for you!
http://hanbooks.com/koreabug.html

Shel Silverstein

Saturday morning. Three a.m. I woke up with an earworm, and no one to blame it on.

Usually, Manfred, Jr. places them there by continually (and some might even say maliciously) singing a snippet of a song over and over. He really is diabolical -- my son, my spawn, my shot at immortality. When he was in elementary school, he'd come into my bedroom and sing "Good Morning, Starshine" before I was fully awake. I'd have that damn song in my head all day as I worked, shopped, stood in line at the DMV -- you name the place and the most annoying soundtrack on earth was right there with me.

But on this particular Saturday morning, Manfred, Jr. was blameless, and the song was "True Story", sung by Bobby Bare and written by the superbly-almost-obscenely talented Shel Silverstein:

This morning I jumped on my hoss and went out for a ride/but some wild outlaws chased me and they shot me in the side/I crawled into a wildcat's cage to find a place to hide...

And? And?

I crawled into a wildcat's cage to find a place to hide...

Crap.

Not only was this an earworm, this was an earworm that demanded the whole text of the song, would not be satisfied with only a snippet, would not let me rest until I played THE WHOLE DAMN SONG in my head. I lay in bed, cursing as the tune played interminably over and over on that last line, my tired brain trying creakily and failing mightily to pull up that elusive file. Every cell in my body was screaming at me to get out of bed and hie my pajama-ed ass over to my office to the computer to surf for the missing lyric. I grimly waited it out till daylight and tried in vain to give myself a different earworm with The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated", but it was hopeless.

After a couple of futile searches, I finally located the stray line of verse but some pirates found me sleeping there and soon they had me tied... finished playing the song in my head, and retired that particular earworm. I'm glad I contracted it though, because it started me thinking about Shel Silverstein.

Most people have experienced Shel Silverstein (1930-1999) as the funny and quirky author of many volumes of poetry that are geared towards children and parents to read and enjoy together. I'm more familiar with Silverstein as the outrageous, earthy and sometimes pungent storyteller-songwriter of country/crossover tunes such as "Sylvia's Mother", "One's On The Way", "The Unicorn" and "A Boy Named Sue". It feels really strange for me to be extremely familiar with and a fan of an author and also barely acquainted with him in book form.

I became familiar with Silverstein's work because "Unicorn" and "A Boy Named Sue" were wildly popular when I was way down in elementary school, but what really defined him for me was the release of country singer Bobby Bare's album, Lullabies, Legends, And Lies when I was in 7th grade. My parents bought this record and it was hardly ever off the turntable for almost a year. Simutaneously, selections from LL&L were getting heavy airplay on Armed Forces Radio. The album had an embarrassment of riches on it: "Marie Laveaux", "Daddy, What If?", "Mermaid", "Paul", "True Story" "Winner" "Shiloh" and "Rosalie's Good Eats Cafe" among other gems by Silverstein.

I have paged through the Silverstein classics such as A LIGHT IN THE ATTIC, THE MISSING PIECE, and THE GIVING TREE. While I recognize many of the aspects that characterize Silverstein's poetry, it doesn't feel like real Silverstein. It feels like a dimension is missing, and the whole effect seems curiously flat.

My Shel Silverstein is the one from LL&L: Fanciful and slightly raunchy. A wonderful example of this exists in "Paul", Silverstein's take on Paul Bunyan:

Talk about women/that man was so lusty/he needed a woman every hour/just to keep from gettin' rusty/the young ones run/and the old ones crawl/to Paul .

For a middle-schooler, this was wickedly funny stuff. When my earnestly sober and polyester-clad grandparents came to visit, I "innocently" asked, "What's 'lusty'?" just to see them squirm.

Another example, even more hilarious, can be found in "Mermaid": The narrator falls in love with your traditional, garden-variety mermaid, but is vaguely dissatisfied:

...from her head to her waist she was just my taste/but the rest of her was a fish.

Eventually, she leaves him and he mourns until:

...her sister, she swam by and set my heart a-whirl/'cause her upper part was an ugly fish/but the bottom part was a GIRL!/Yes, her toes are pink and rosy/and her knees are smooth and pale/and her legs, they are a work of art/and I love that girl with all my heart/I don't give a damn about the upper part/and that's how I end my tale!

Equally satisfying was "Marie Laveaux", the Louisiana voodoo queen who exacted the revenge on no-good Handsome Jack that he so richly deserved:

GRREEEEEEEEEEE! Another man done gone!

There's also the very funny and multiple-versed "Winner"-- a chronicle of every contest the infamous Tiger Man McCool won, including stealing his wife from another man:

That woman, she gets uglier and she gets meaner every day/but I got her boy, and that's what makes me ...

[the slightest pause with an upwards inflection, deliciously delivered by the inimitably laconic Bobby Bare]

the WINNER?

For maximum comic effect, Silverstein piles up a list of Tiger Man McCool's ailments and injuries that strain both credulity and the Merck manual. Tiger Man matter-of-factly tells his latest challenger:

If it wasn't for this glass eye of mine/I'd shed a happy tear/to think of all you're gonna get by being a winner,

Also Silverstein is a master at creating pictures with words as evidenced in "Bottomless Well":

[Jesse] sits in his big white wicker rocker/eatin' candy-coated cashews/sippin' orange lemonade/while that sweet young thing/fans the flies from off his eyebrows...

At least that's until Jesse meets a mysterious and untimely end:

But it ain't murder/'cause he ain't dead/he's still a-fallin'/fallin' down down forever in the bottomless well! /Bye, Jesse!

Silverstein fans whose gentle sensibilities aren't too easily offended are in for a real treat if they can procure Lullabies, Legends, and Lies or a halfway decent Dr. Hook compilation CD. Even more fun is this website (which is where I found the missing line my pesky earworm demanded) that has links to most of Silverstein's lyrics: http://www.banned-width.com/shel.html

Lost Book

I lost a book. This hasn't happened to me in years! I think the last time was in 8th grade, back in 1975. I have had some near misses over the years, but the book was always found. There was also the time I inadvertently sold Manfred, Jr's copy of Election on eBay. I thought it was my book. It's not lost -- it's just somewhere in Duluth. Manfred, Jr. is still not happy about it, though.

But back to the book I lost. To make matters worse, it wasn't even my book. It was a book Pablo loaned me. After looking in all possible places, I decided to tell him.

"Dontcha hate it when you can't find something? And you've looked and looked EVERYWHERE. And dontcha hate it when it's a book you've lost...well, maybe misplaced. A book you were enjoying so much! And dontcha hate it when it's not even your book, that it's a book that someone let you borrow?"

Pablo's attention sharpened. "What book?"

"Song of Solomon. But I'll find it, don't worry. Or replace it. You know I will."

"Well, that's all right. I thought you were talking about my folio edition of The Maltese Falcon, and then I'd have to kill you."

"Oh no, I'm careful with that one."

(Folio books intimidate me. I won't even touch them unless I've scrubbed my hands with soap and water two or three times!)

I really hate it that Song of Solomon seems to have vanished. It's my own fault. I was enjoying the book so much, I was carrying it from place to place to place, trying to capture a few stolen minutes of reading time.

What else was there to do but go to bookcrossing.com and bleat piteously, shamelessly begging for a replacement copy? As an act of contrition, I offered The Historian as an exchange. Well, I guess it wasn't just contrition -- I knew it was also pretty damn good bait. Still, I had hoped to hang onto The Historian for a while longer and use it as bait for something that I might covet later on down the road.

A kind woman living in Tennessee with whom I've traded before just happened to have Song of Solomon on her bookshelf, so she answered my pathetic plea and now the book is winging its way to Korea.

Naturally, this bookwormy crisis has affected my reading. One minute I'm eagerly reading, waiting to see if Hagar is really going to go ahead and bump off her cousin and lover, Milkman Dead, and wondering what other crazy skeletons his family has in their various closets, and if Guitar is going to be able to carry out his grisly duty as the Sunday man, and the next minute, the damn book's gone and I'm stranded with nothing to read!

Nothing to read. Ha. At last count, I had a mountain of 20 books piled up, waiting to be read. None of them would do. I gazed at the titles disinterestedly with a glazed eye, muttering things that made me sound like I was a refugee from Deadwood.

Finally, I grabbed Arrowsmith, the book I liberated from that bar in Busan last spring. Usually Sinclair Lewis can shake me out of a funk. I read a few sentences then slammed it shut, exclaiming: "Where IS that fucking book? Damn it!" Clearly, Arrowsmith was not having the desired effect.

I went to amazon.com and browsed moodily. Suddenly, I sat upright. A new Harvey Pekar book! A novel! THE QUITTER. A graphic novel! Pekar had suddenly been quiet after the AMERICAN SPLENDOR hoopla, and he hadn't updated his blog, so I'd been worried about his health.

I smiled. THE QUITTER would cheer me up. Then I snarled at the monitor. No, I wouldn't order it! I'd punish myself further for losing a book! I wouldn't allow myself any enjoyment from books until SONG OF SOLOMON arrived and I finished it and gave it to Pablo!

Sulking and reading. It's like the walking and chewing gum thing; I can't do both at once. My reading totals for October are gonna suck. Damn! I can't stand it! WHERE THE HELL DID I LEAVE THAT BOOK??? Furthermore, why couldn't this have happened to one of my books, preferably ATLAS SHRUGGED?