Bookstorm

I'm trying to get back into the swing of things.

It's been a few years since I read anything by John le Carré, but I think Our Kind of Traitor sounds excellent. (I picked up A Most Wanted Man recently.) I don't blame him for wanting to be removed from the shortlist for the Man Booker International prize. Really: does anyone give a shit about literary awards anymore?

I've spent the last month or so reading Alex Haley's The Autobiography of Malcolm X. I picked it up thinking it was something I should read--I knew almost nothing about Malcolm X, aside from others' views of him (he's a racist hate-preacher or a color-blind human rights activist, depending on whom you ask). I've been pleasantly surprised--his autobiography is fascinating, and what's more, he's a very intelligent and sensitive person. He's certainly no racist. (While working on the book, he broke with the Nation of Islam, and his views veered towards international human rights, rather than domestic civil rights.) I haven't finished the book yet, but it's completely engrossing.

I finished Philip K. Dick's Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said. It was a fun acid-trip novel. Taking place in a bleak police state, the novel revolves around a television and recording star who, overnight, ceases to exist. Not literally, of course, but every trace of his existence--his identity cards, his birth certificate--has disappeared, and no one remembers him. People don't recognize him, and lovers don't know who he is, and there's no evidence that he'd ever starred in a television show or recorded an album. I don't know how I managed to ignore Dick for so long--I may have read a short story of his--but it'll be interesting to delve into his work. (Aside: looking over his bibliography, I think he may have come up with some of the worst titles in the history of American letters.)

And that's all I have for you, kids. Enjoy your weekend.

My sloth continues with yet another round-up ...

• How many of these books have you read?
• At Esquire, Benjamin Alsup reviews David Foster Wallace's The Pale King.
• The New Yorker for Black People.
• Andrew Gulli, managing editor of The Strand, discusses publishing Dashiell Hammett's "So I Shot Him."
• Jennifer Weiner passes judgment in the opening round of the Tournament of Books.

I read Michael Chabon's The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay a few months ago, and it was one of the best books I've read in years. Here's what the film version might've looked like. (The adaptation died in development hell, but director Jamie Caliri shot a section of the screenplay, mixing live action and animation. It's pretty inspired.)

Speaking of movies that aren't going to happen any time soon, Benicio del Toro's adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness" got shut down because del Toro doesn't want to be tied to a PG-13 rating.

Here's a round-up of some things that went down late last month ...

• Could the Kindle be free by the end of the year?
• The A.V. Club points out nineteen reasons why dystopias aren't all that bad.
• There's new fiction from David Foster Wallace at The New Yorker.
• "Too busy teaching novel writing class": The Onion knows exactly why you haven't finished your novel.
• And finally, from my good friend Jordan, dancing bookshelves.

I spent a couple of days reading Alan Moore and David Lloyd's V for Vendetta. It was excellent, and, with its sex, nudity, violence, decidedly not for kids. It's a dense, philosophical work, and numerous literary references, such as Thomas Pynchon's V., William Shakespeare's Henry VIII, and Arthur Koestler, lend the story some intellectual weight. V is a complex character--in the end, I began to wonder if he was really any better than the fascists he fights--and the villains have depth and humanity. V for Vendetta is really about ideals. Moore clearly has a position, but he doesn't try to convince anyone that he's right. (In an introduction published during V for Vendetta's DC Comics run, Moore admitted that the book sometimes reflects a naïve position about politics.) In any case, the book was very good--I recommend it, even if you don't read graphic novels.

At McSweeney's, Daniel Casey imagines H. P. Lovecraft's first day as a substitute teacher at Arkham Junior High School.

For those of you thinking of coordinating an attempt to disrupt the course of this class by dropping your books on the floor at precisely 10:03 AM, then let me remind you that the last time a group of mostly virginal youths such as yourself attempted such a thing, one student got a paper cut and the books formed a pentagram where they fell. The spilled blood released Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of The Woods with a Thousand Young, from her eternal slumber. Needless to say, the bloodshed and maddening terror that followed resulted in an early release, but all those students who had participated and not been slain were given Saturday detention. Any unexcused absences will require either a doctor's note or some sort of proof of your otherworldly exploits, like a necklace of teeth awarded to you by a cannibal king along with a parental permission slip, or else your final grade will be lowered by .666 of a point.

That covers most of the grisly horrors and unforeseen dreads that await us in today's class. Are there any questions? I will do my best to provide an answer to your queries, but know that some questions cannot be unasked. Once uttered, you may teeter over the edge of that infinitely black chasm we call "the tenuous cord of human reason," plunging headlong into the unknown depths of mind-shattering terror.

Samuel Beckett remembers James Joyce.

And I brought him home drunk one night, but I won't go into that. He drank a lot but in the evenings only. I remember a party. He was a great man for anniversaries. Every year he would celebrate his father's anniversary, "Father forsaken, forgive thy son." On that occasion, he would give me a note, in francs. I don't know how many francs it would be. A note. To give to some poor down-and-out in memory of his father. Towards the end of the year, in December, the date of his father's birth was celebrated and commemorated every year and I was given on several occasions, when I was available, this note to give to some down-and-out in memory of his father. "New life is breathed upon the glass," etc.

What happens when you black out the majority of Westboro Baptist Church's godly hate literature? Poetry.

Here's a long-overdue round-up ...

• Reading is overrated.
• The BBC has released its archive of author interviews.
• William Shakespeare really did revise his work. Also: his original plays were never divided into acts.
• This probably shouldn't come as a surprise, but Céline was an "absolute bastard."

Laura Miller reviews Kirill Yeskov's The Last Ringbearer, a retelling of J. R. R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings trilogy from the perspective of Mordor.

In Yeskov's retelling, the wizard Gandalf is a war-monger intent on crushing the scientific and technological initiative of Mordor and its southern allies because science "destroys the harmony of the world and dries up the souls of men!" He's in cahoots with the elves, who aim to become "masters of the world," and turn Middle-earth into a "bad copy" of their magical homeland across the sea. Barad-dur, also known as the Dark Tower and Sauron's citadel, is, by contrast, described as "that amazing city of alchemists and poets, mechanics and astronomers, philosophers and physicians, the heart of the only civilization in Middle-earth to bet on rational knowledge and bravely pitch its barely adolescent technology against ancient magic."

Because Gandalf refers to Mordor as the "Evil Empire" and is accused of crafting a "Final Solution to the Mordorian problem" by rival wizard Saruman, he obviously serves as an avatar for Russia's 20th-century foes. But the juxtaposition of the willfully feudal and backward "West," happy with "picking lice in its log 'castles'" while Mordor cultivates learning and embraces change, also recalls the clash between Europe in the early Middle Ages and the more sophisticated and learned Muslim empires to the east and south. Sauron passes a "universal literacy law," while the shield maiden Eowyn has been raised illiterate, "like most of Rohan's elite"--good guys Tolkien based on his beloved Anglo-Saxons.

The Last Ringbearer is available as a free and legal download.