Bookstorm

I don't know when this was published, but Shortlist offers up the fifty coolest books ever. (Not that anyone's asking, but I think Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is the coolest book ever written.)

Christopher Hitchens: dead at sixty-two.

Here's a round-up of links I almost forgot to share ...

• Had you enrolled in David Foster Wallace's literary analysis class, you would've needed Stephen King's Carrie, Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs, and Jackie Collins's Rock Star, among others.
• The history of the future of the book.
• And since we're on the subject, here are ten books that can teach you how to survive the future.
• Alan Moore on the Wall Street occupation: "These people look like they're having a good time."
• "Why are male writers so bad at sex scenes?" (I don't think this debate will ever be settled, but you know what they say about practice ...)

I finished my world literature class with an A (thereby screwing the curve for everyone else, which I don't regret doing), and I'm just beginning to unwind and enjoy the winter break. I've been dipping into a science fiction anthology called Solaris Rising, but I'm mostly sick of books and reading.

However, a few weeks back, I managed to read Michael Connelly's The Drop. It wasn't Connelly's finest hour. Maybe my expectations were set too high. I thought Harry Bosch got a little too lucky solving the two cases. If the plotting is any indication, Connelly didn't seem very interested in the book. It wasn't bad, but it didn't have a punch, either. There's really nothing setting it apart. I don't expect Connelly to top The Last Coyote, but when he phones it in, you get The Drop. It's not as unmemorable as The Scarecrow, but it's close.

I may try reading Vladimir Nabokov's Ada. I just don't know if I can deal with reading an entire (annotated) book on my computer. I suppose we'll find out.

There are only two weeks left in the semester, and I'm gearing up for my final paper. It won't be too bad--I just have to write a five-page critical essay on one of the Renaissance authors we read. I've decided to write about Francis Petrarch--the father of Humanism and the father of the sonnet. It's true: without Petrarch, we wouldn't have William Shakespeare.

Poor Petrarch, who was so infatuated with Laura de Noves, seems to have been somewhat neglected as a poet, being overshadowed by Giovanni Boccaccio and Dante. Petrarch's influence can't be understated, but it's interesting that neither he nor his contemporaries thought his poems would be a lasting contribution to literature. But he wasn't too shabby as a poet. Take a look at sonnet ninety (from The Norton Anthology of World Literature, Volume C), one of my favorites:

She used to let her golden hair fly free
For the wind to toy and tangle and molest;
Her eyes were brighter than the radiant west.
(Seldom they shine so now.) I used to see

Pity look out of those deep eyes on me
("It was false pity," you would now protest.)
I had love's tinder heaped within my breast;
What wonder that the flame burned furiously?

She did not walk in any mortal way,
But with angelic progress; when she spoke,
Unearthly voices sang in unison.

She seemed divine among the dreary folk
Of earth. You say she is not so today?
Well, though the bow's unbent, the wound bleeds on.

I wondered if I was going to learn anything by taking this class (it simply fulfills the humanities requirement for my degree), but I have to admit, I probably wouldn't have read some of the authors and selections on my own. (Case in point: I had no interest in reading the Genesis creation myth, and I still think it carries almost no literary value. But I did learn that, contrary to popular Christian belief, Genesis doesn't name the infamous serpent.) But I gained a deeper appreciation for poetry, and this was probably because the class wasn't drilled on rhyme, meter, alliteration, and all those literary terms no one remembers.

In any case, I'll be glad when the semester is finally over. I have an A, and the highest point total in the class, and I'm very tired.

I don't keep up with the literary news these days, but here's a post-Thanksgiving round-up ...

• Jonathan Lethem bitches about being reviewed by James Wood, and ends up being an asshole about it.
• This is what we can expect from Mark Z. Danielewski's forthcoming (in 2014!) serial novel.
• My favorite living crime writer, Michael Connelly, will be on The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson on November twenty-ninth. I can't wait for The Drop. Janet Maslin liked it.
• I just realized that Bookslut has a feature called "Star-Crossed." How long have I missed this? In any case, this month's column features George Eliot and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

I've spent the last couple of days reading Gillian Flynn's Dark Places, and it's one of those rare books that I don't want to end. Normally, I don't like books that alternate between narrators, time periods, and points of view, especially with murder mysteries--this almost always strikes me as a lazy writer's way of trying to drum up suspense. This way of writing usually kills a story's momentum, sends the plot slamming into a brick wall. But Flynn juggles all of her storylines with ease and plants clues that tie everything together.

Dark Places is a nasty, violent piece of work. With its gore and satanic theme, it's as much a suspense novel as it is a horror novel. Flynn is acutely aware that suspense comes from characterization; without carefully-shaded characters, there's no convincing suspects, no believable motive, and ludicrous plot twists. But in Dark Places, everyone's a suspect, each with his or her own motive for chopping up a family of four on a cold January night. Crime novels should adhere to very strict rules of logic, and Flynn doesn't use sleight-of-hand plotting to hop over a gaping hole. She doesn't need to; she's confident that her white-trash characters will guide readers through the story, and she doesn't insult her readers' intelligence. Literary crime fiction might sound contradictory, but that's exactly what Dark Places is.

(I also recommend Sharp Objects. Trust me, Flynn will renew your faith in crime fiction.)

I've fallen way behind on all the literary news and have mostly devoted myself to playing Batman: Arkham City and reading Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead (recommended) and David Morrell's Creepers (not recommended). But Halloween's almost here and I just realized Granta's Horror has been available for several weeks. I might pick it up. In the meantime, for some Halloween fun, take a look at Robert Coover's "Vampire."

The last time I wrote poetry was in eighth grade. I had to write a book of poems for my language arts class, and for my efforts--which consisted of banging out several shitty poems the night before the assignment was due--I was awarded a lovely F and a loathing for poetry that continued until well after high school. Now, I can enjoy poetry, but I'd never consider myself a poet, and I'd never write it to fulfill a creative void. Simply put, writing poetry is completely beyond me. Poets need to control their language and rythyms--one doesn't just write bizarre sentences that are cut off at odd intervals. Writing poetry requires discipline--which I definitely don't have.

When I learned that I was to write a poem for my World Literature class, my stomach didn't drop, but there was some eye-rolling involved. (And probably a derisive chuckle, but I'm a sarcastic person anyway.) Furthermore, the week's unit was on devotional poetry--I read Sappho and some Egyptian poems and some Psalms. (The Psalms were particularly uninteresting, but I've never been interested in the Bible to begin with.) Being an atheist presents obvious challenges to the topic, but that's where irony comes handy. I wrote my poem in Sapphic stanza, which is actually pretty easy to work with.

So here's why I never should and never will be a poet:

I sing of beauty and of men inflamed with
love. Venerable Aphrodite, vain and
ill-tempered, unfaithful and jealous, your love
for Paris created so much death during
that sad Trojan War.

Mortals say, "All's fair in love and war," but Zeus,
mighty and feared, told you not to traffic with
the black art of war; instead, goddess, guide us
in the black art of

love and marriage. Your faithlessness is known and
emulated by countless mortals: you loved
violent Ares, the god of war, with a
passion unrivaled.

Goddess, help us to choose our lovers wisely,
and help us to love with all our hearts. Guide Eros'
arrows, and let our adulteries rage with
song, dance, and passion.

No, I don't think very highly of it--I spent more time counting syllables on my finger than anything else--but my professor seemed to enjoy it. She said that using dialogue is a Sapphic move, which I didn't know about. It's funny how things work out.

I'm blasting my way through the semester, which is going reasonably well. (I know I bombed my first algebra test, so I need to go back to the drawing board and find a better way of studying for the class.) But I had no idea that Conan the Barbarian was teaching at Trinity College Dublin. It's one of the funniest things I've seen this week, and it almost makes me want to go back to majoring in English. (Sadly, the college already took the page down, but at least we can enjoy it as a cached version.)