Larry McMurtry on Susan Sontag

The following excerpts in which Larry McMurtry mentions Susan Sontag are from his 1999 memoir, Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen:

     Susan Sontag is a reader who can almost be said to sweat literature--it is in her juices, as basketball is in Michael Jordan's. With Susan, I think, the tug of literature is as constant as breath. A characteristic she shares with all great readers is that, however stern she may intend to be, politically or philosophically, when she begins to talk about her reading she reveals a broadly catholic taste. The thrill Susan experiences when she spots a desired book she has not been able to find is probably comparable to that of a bird-watcher who at last glimpses a long-sought species. [pp. 124-125]

     Both in my library at home and in my bookshops I have a hard time hewing to any strict philosophy of shelving. Shelving by chronology (Susan Sontag's method) doesn't always work for me. The modest Everyman edition of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle refuses to sit comfortably next to Leonard Baskin's tall Beowulf, and exactly the same problem--incompatibility of size--crops up if one shelves alphabetically. Susan Sontag, on a visit when all my books were in the old ranch house, found that she couldn't live even one night with the sloppiness of my shelving. She imposed a hasty chronologizing which held for some years and still holds, in the main.
    Susan's principles notwithstanding, I make free with chronologies when the books seem to demand it. My Sterne looks happier beside my Defoe than he looks next to his nearer contemporary Smollett, so Tristram Shandy sits next to Moll Flanders rather than Peregrine Pickle. [p. 167]

84, Charing Cross Road

Helene Hanff and I don't have the same taste in books, but I can totally see myself in her book-shopping shoes. I also see myself making friends with a bookstore staff in post-war London and shipping them tasty treats and other small luxuries at Christmastime.

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84, Charing Cross Road is the result of twenty years of Hanff's correspondence with Marks & Co. Booksellers. Reading this slim memoir from a vantage point of more than 60 years onward, the prices made me smile. Hanff has a taste for the old and rare, and she sends Marks & Co. a five dollar bill and gets a stack of books so ancient that Dickens and Thackeray probably used them for booster seats when they were children and somehow, she ends up with two bucks credited to her account.

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The most enjoyable parts of the book are her feisty letters to the company. No matter how obnoxious or strident she gets, she always gets a gentlemanly response from the patient manager, Frank Doel. I’m more than ready to treat myself to another viewing of the 1987 movie version starring Anne Bancroft as Hanff and Anthony Hopkins as Doel.

Readathon: Hour 14

Pages read: 0
Snacks: 0
Blogs visited: 21

I'm excited that during my cheering duties, I ran into Fiona's blog -- Book Journeys She's also here in the ROK. Her coolness knows no bounds. How do I know? She's got my girl-crush...I mean, she's got the Nancy Pearl Librarian action figure on display in her room.

When I feel more coordinated (probably tomorrow), Fiona's going on my blogroll.

Book Score!

Now that I've Bookmooched and some fellow teachers have borrowed books, it hasn't taken long to come to the happy realization that I have some room on my shelves again. My inner Biblio-Barbarian (like Nature) hates a void, so...

Making a return trip to the Bandi & Luni at Jonggak station, I unexpectedly scored another one for my Pulitzer shelf: The Stories of John Cheever, which was the 1979 winner -- really nice trade paperback that was still encased in plastic. It was pretty expensive, too -- almost as much as a new hardcover book, but I had to have it. For the collection.

I hadn't been to What The Book? in a while, so my heart beat with anticipation as I climbed Hooker Hill. As always, I saw several things I wanted, but walked out with Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons, which I've been looking for off and on for a couple of years and a beautiful dark-green Virago paperback of a 1931 Sheila Kaye-Smith novel called Susan Spray. I'd never heard of the author or the title before, but loved the title for obvious reasons. I'm also intrigued by the Virago imprint -- they're starting to show up in Korea, and that's good news -- it gives me yet another category of books to obsess about. After about 90 minutes of browsing, I paid for my two finds as well as the new issue of Bookmarks, pinned a note on the bulletin board encouraging people to join the book group: Are you a bookworm? Do you prefer the term Bookzilla?...and went in search of Quizno's. (I'm sorry, Barbara Kingsolver! It was delicious!)

In other news, I've been trying to uncover who the bookworms are and aren't among my new colleagues. So far I've found some Christopher Moore fans and a Faulkner devotee. The former are brandishing copies of You Suck and the latter has promised to lend me his copy of Go Down, Moses. Faulkner Guy and I are both on the lookout for A Fable -- him because well, it's Faulkner and me, because well, it's a Pulitzer fiction winner. During the same conversation, Faulkner Guy expressed an interest in Middlemarch, so I lent him my copy with an enthusiastic recommendation. He's young but he's wormy, and his Inner Book Snob ain't all that inner. I'm pleased that I found him. Surely there's more bookworms to discover here. I have high hopes.

You Make My Day...Yeah, YOU!

I was tagged for this meme by both Eva and Dewey...hmmm...does this mean I can choose 20 people? I really want to! Oh, I guess I'll play by the rules...how boring! I hate to narrow my choices down to 10. It smacks of beauty pageants. Everyone on my blogroll is important to me, or they wouldn't be on my blogroll. Together we make up a wonderful community of booklovers. Ofttimes, I get nervous and itchy at the thought of all the book blogs out there that I don't know about. Yet.

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1. Kookiejar makes my day because she not only reads, she's so knowledgeable about pop culture. She's the expat's lifeline when it comes to the latest regarding movies and TV shows. I don't fully understand ALL of her obsessions, but if Kookie's enthusiastic, that's good enough for me.

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2. Eva makes my day because she's so bookish and bloggish and young! I've got a great feeling about the next generation of bookworms!

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3. Sam Houston makes my day because he reads and blogs like a house afire and he likes country music. REAL country music, not the dull, monotonous shit that's on the airwaves right now. (How can anyone listen to that stuff? I'd rather drink muddy water and sleep in a hollow log.) Go visit Sam. He's a gentleman with taste; he'll steer you right.

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4. Tara makes my day because she blogs about books and food, my other great obsession.

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5. Raych makes my day because we have similar tastes in books, and I find her blogging style so comfortable, with its conversational style.

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6. Ella makes my day because she's also an expat bookworm in a country where bookstores are far and few between and The Library Situation is not too good. Also, she's bright, witty and quirky. What's not to like?

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7. Jeane makes my day because she blogs about a variety of books, not just the latest stuff we all covet. I get a lot of good ideas for obscure treasures to hunt for when I read her reviews.

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8. Susan makes my day and has for about 3 years now! Hers was one of the first bookish blogs I found, and happily realized then that I wasn't alone in the bookworm corner of cyberspace. I admire the way she tackles challenges, her incisive reviews and her lovely first name. Finally, her blog title is my favorite form of exercise.

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9. Annie makes my day because she started super-reading and super-blogging again about two seconds after she gave birth to her baby girl. I've got a great feeling about the next NEXT generation of bookworms.

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10. John makes my day because he's always got some kick-ass challenges going in The Great Wednesday Compare, and he's the brains behind The Canadian Book Challenge, Eh? I admire the way he expands his horizons by reading poetry and short stories at regular intervals.

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11. Dewey makes my day especially on Sundays, when she does her book coveting, and when she organizes readathons. (When's the next one, Dewey?) Her name evokes lovely and bittersweet memories of libraries and I like it that she doesn't get squeamish when I drop the occasional f-bomb into my blog.

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12. Aaron has been making my day since last fall when he showed up at the coffee shop and became a member of BOOKLEAVES. He's a valuable resource when I have questions about Canadian literature, and when I want to borrow books or DVDs from him. Let loose in a bookstore, his nearly unrestrained book lust is a delight to behold. It's really peculiar -- the 2 biggest bookworms I've met in Korea have both been guys. (Alas -- Pablo, my bookishly convivial ex-co-worker has no blog!)

Oh, right...10 people that make my day. I've got 12 here. Well, my secret's out: I can't count. My math skills are remedial at best. C'mon -- did you really think I majored in English solely because I like to read?