Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, May 31, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT

This week's topic: What are your favorite books, poems, sonnets, etc. to read outloud? What do you read to your significant other? To yourself?

Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.

Submit your questions and comments before or during the discussion.

Dirda's name appears weekly in The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a fat literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be writing a lighthearted essay about the joys and burdens of living in a house filled with way too many books. Although he holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda is still smart enough to be an unabashed fan of "The Simpsons," noting that "the show's genius derives from its details." He also loves P.G. Wodehouse, intellectual history, children's books and locked-room mysteries – just the sort of range you'd expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner for distinguished criticism.

These days, Dirda says he spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth and daydreaming ("my only real pastime"). Otherwise he just reads books and writes about them, with occasional visits to secondhand bookstores in search of treasures. He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer working on his reviews and Readings columns. "Do not imagine that I regard my taste for literary artifacts as anything but shameless and vulgar," Dirda says, "I have sunk so low as to covet Edward Gorey coffee mugs. I yearn for a bust of Dante to place on a bookcase."

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

Michael Dirda: WElcome to Dirda on Books! I just finished answering an hour and a half of e-mail, so my fingers may not be as nimble and quick as usual. But I'll do my best to field your questions, comments and thoughts about books, reading, life, birth, death and infinity, as they used to say in the opening credits of Ben Casey. Or was it Dr. Kildare? One of those shows. Anyway, on to this week's session!

Herndon, Va.: I read aloud to my daughter (now 11) quite a bit and we've had the most fun with the Harry Potter books (we've read them all). Lots of different characters to whom I can give interesting voices and plenty of dramatic situations where I can turn up the tension. A bit hard on the vocal chords at times but worth the strain.

Michael Dirda: Yes, I would think they'd be ideal for reading aloud. In my family's case, my three sons read the books on their own, long before I could even suggest that their dad might make an impressive oral interpreter.

Fairfax, Va.: This is a bit more relevant to last week's topic, but I thought you might be interested in the results of a poll on my company web site which asked about summer reading preferences. The results were spread out pretty evenly among the answers, though sadly 15 percent said they don't read for fun. Most of the 115 respondents are from the greater D.C. area.

It is time for some light summer reading. What genre of book do you most like to kick back with when reading for fun?

Mystery (4.5%)

Science Fiction (9.0%)

Espionage/Thriller (9.9%)

Suspense (10.8%)

Romance (2.7%)

Fantasy (2.7%)

Fiction (12.6%)

Biography/Memoir (3.6%)

History (9.9%)

Nonfiction (8.1%)

Poetry (0.9%)

Other (9.9%)

I don't read books for fun (15.3%)

Michael Dirda: Interesting. I particularly like the last responents: 15 percent who don't read for fun. Such serious men and women: I do hope they are aren't parents.

EG, D.C.: Michael, it’s time for your annual check-up. Two years ago, you wrote about your newly thin self, resulting from your incarnation as a born-again exerciser/healthy eater. Are you still following that regimen and has the weight still stayed off? We worry about you.

Michael Dirda: Well, I do have a couple of conditions that need to be monitored, and I'm not saying what they are, but yes I've stayed my skinnier self. My weight is about 172 now, up from a low of 160, but I was told that I looked too thin. Alas, I gave up running and exercise for a while, but have now started to jog again, and hope to firm up my aging body. I"ve been trying start meditating and have been contemplating training to run the Marine Corps Marathon. Hey, you never know. I do try to eat healthy foods, but am not fanatical about it. I keep trying to develop my inner and outer Harrison Ford.

Nashville, Tenn.: On the poll of readers, I am surprised to see 85% have an opinion. So maybe 15% of non-readers is pretty good.

Michael Dirda: Nice point.

Lenexa, Kans.: Mr. Dirda, --My One Attempt at Spousal Co-Reading--

I read slowly enough as it is. Thirty years ago--feet entwined--we read Ethan Frome to each other, and years later saw the Liam Neeson film--the sled went about 10 miles an hour (wouldn't have crushed two grapes let alone two young lovers).

Anyway, my wife is still a big, beautiful, blonde. I keep her around for other reasons. . . . One can read alone.

Michael Dirda: Nicely put. I don't think I ever read anything to my wife except the limericks I wrote that made fun of various parts of her body. I was ever the romantic.

Washington, D.C.: When I was younger I tried to read Saul Bellow, but could not get into the books I tried. I recenlty picked up Ravelstein, read the first two pages and was totally drawn into it. I loved the narrator's voice and the way he told his story, even tho' there was no plot to speak of. I have since read Seize the Day, brilliant but painful, and am now reading and loving Herzog. What else by Bellow do you recommend? Will he likely continue to be read by future generations?

Michael Dirda: Most Bellow is worth reading and different readers have different favorites. You might also try Humboldt's Gift, The Adventures of Augie March and Henderson the Rain King.
If future generations read, I'm sure that Bellow will be read.

Dupont Circle Underground: I've noticed that the editors of Book World (yourself included) try to thematically group some, if not most, of the books in a given issue (e.g., patriotic books this past weekend, romantic books on Valentine's Day, horticulture on Arbor Day, etc.). It seems to me that this is a relatively recent phenomenon (past six months or so), but I could be mistaken.

May I just add some feedback that at least this reader prefers a more general hodge-podge of books, increasing the likelihood that there may be something interesting to me on any given week. I'm feel dejected when I finish a week's Book World without anything new to (aspire to) read.

Also, the genre reviews (mystery, science fiction, etc.) had been published on a regular basis each month (first Sunday, second Sunday, and so on), but their appearances are now much more erratic.

Michael Dirda: In truth, I think most of our issues are general, with a thematically organized section only if occasion or books call for one. Yes, we have been erratic in our genre coverage. VArious reasons for this, but we'll try to get back on schedule.

Milwaukee, Wis.: Poems read to significant other?

My wife and I like to read poems from books of Chinese poetry translated by Kenneth Rexroth and published by New Directions. The poems are in the present tense which produces a sense of immediacy, while the poet's senses reveal a poignant truth about experience.There is a stillness to the poems, also: not the absence of noise, but the presence of silence.
( Plus they're short poems ;-)

Here's an example: FAREWELL TO SHEN YUEH
by Fan Yun...

"Heading East or West, down the many years,
how often we have separated here at Lo Yang Gate. Once when I left the snow flakes seemed like flower petals.
Now today the petals seem like snow."

And now a check of rumor control...
In an AOL Books chat room last week a woman claimed that because Dirda Online has become very popular, jamming the server, a program called 'Dirda with Book' will be on Cable TV. Is this true?
I hope the buzz is true, but I won't believe "Dirda on HBO" as a summer replacement for the Sopranos!

Michael Dirda: Love poem. I too used to read those New Directions collections by Rexroth.
The other stuff is news to me, starting with this program causing a server to jam. I'd like to believe that. Nobody has contacted me about becoming a tv book guru, but I'd certainly give it a try, were I asked. As Gore Vidal used to say, never pass up an opportunity to be on television (or to have sex, but that's another story). Dirda replacing the Sopranos is definitely true, however. Who better?

Columbia, Mo.: Anything by Richard Russo is funny when read aloud, but especially "Straight Man."

Of course, he's pretty funny when not read aloud, too.

Michael Dirda: Yes.

Washington, D.C.: Hello Michael -- Thanks for the chat. My husband and I have different reading tastes -- he prefers non-fiction, I like fiction better -- so it can be difficult to find something we can share. But we both love mysteries, particularly those by Marcia Muller. We also try to find time to read out loud to each other bits of the books we are reading on our own. Finally, because we're parents, we also share the books that our kids are reading (or that we are reading to them). Right now, our 10-year-old daughter is reading the "Alice" books by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, while our seven-year-old son enjoys lots of non-fiction "information" books (we learn a lot from these!). Both kids love reading comics as well (Garfield, Foxtrot, Calvin and Hobbes), and so we're now sharing those as well.

Michael Dirda: Lovely message. I've never read Muller--which book should I start with?

Lenexa, Kans.: Is Paul Zindel--the Pulitzer-Prize winning horror novelist featured by Andrea Gollin in a recent BW--the same man who wrote the play "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-In-The-Moon Marigolds"? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I'm not sure. I'll check into this.

Winston-Salem, N.C.: I know you enjoyed the Pullman series. Up until the last one which I devoured it when it came out, I had listened to the wonderful audiobook versions of the first two done with full casts. The last one was just released on audio and I'll probably re-enjoy it. Maybe one of these sessions could be devoted to people's favorite audiobooks? In addition to the Pullmans my favorites are any read by LeCarre.

Michael Dirda: I"ve heard le carre do abridged versions of his early thrillers--and they were terrific. My friend david streitfeld always thought le carre the best reader he'd ever heard on audiotape.

Somewhere, USA: I like to read Wallace Steven's poetry aloud. His poetry is cerebral yet sensual.

Gutturals and Labials, indeed.

Michael Dirda: Heavenly labials in a world of gutturals. Yes.

Swampoodle, D.C.: Poems, I believe, lend naturally (and historically) to recitation. Among my favorites to read aloud is Philip Levine's "The Simple Truth." Also fun (and even more fun if sung) is Whitman's "Song of Myself." Let that 'barabaric yawp' loose!

On another note, Michael, what is your take on Knut Hamsun? I read Hunger a number of years ago, remember liking it, and am thinking about reading something else by him, as well as rereading Hunger.

Thanks for the forum.

Michael Dirda: I've never read Hamsun, always meant to. My friend Jeff FRank used to recommend him to me, and I have two or three of the novels, but somehow never quite read any. I have heard he's a young man's author.

Washington, D.C.: Mr. Dirda,
I nominate Machiavelli's "The Prince" as one of, if not, the best political novels of all time.

Michael Dirda: Political books, I would think.

New York, N.Y.: Hi Michael--
I believe you asked for suggestions for best books to be read aloud. I would nominate almost anything by Willa Cather. Strong command of the language, vivid character portrayals, extraordinary sense of place and time all make reading Cather aloud a richy satisfying experience.

Michael Dirda: thanks. Happy Days!

Spring Valley, Calif.: Michael, I'm enjoying John Carey's Pure Pleasure and now I'm wondering about The Intellectuals and the Masses. Have you read that one? I read a review of Pleasure that implied he had perhaps done an about face on some of the books and authors, or where they belonged, in the later book.

Michael Dirda: The only previous Carey book I know is his study of Donne, so I don't know if there has been a volte face of opinion. I like Pure Pleasure, but actually think Noel Perrin's A REader's Delight--similar in format and drawn from the REdiscoveries series he used to do for Book World--is even better.

Swim-two-birds: On our honeymoon, my wife and I read to each other Larry McMurtry's "Leaving Cheyenne" -- his second book, from the days when he was still trying (mostly successfully) to be a serious writer rather than a maker of (usually) high-quality entertainments. The story of a lifelong love triangle in which two male best friends pay court to the same woman had the perfect romantic feel.

To my kids, Daniel Pinkwater's "Alan Mendelson, the Boy From Mars" was a recent success, though there were times when I had to interrupt my reading to snort uncontrollably with laughter.

And to put my wife to sleep, there is nothing like a slow, soft, rhythmic reaading of "The Wreck of the Deutschland."

Michael Dirda: Soft-sift in an hourglass. thanks.

Woodbridge, Va.: In childhood I managed to memorize a few poems by Poe and occasionally recite them to myself when bored on long auto trips -- I like them because they rhyme and are rhythmical. When walking or driving in snow, I do the same with one of my favorite poems, Frost's Walking through Woods on a Snowy Evening. I think I love that poem mostly just because I love snow, and the poem evokes the feeling and sound of snow so well.

Michael Dirda: Yes, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening must be the best known modern American poem--and one well worth knowing too.

Towson, Md.: Alas, no current S.O. to whom to read. To myself, I enjoy the reading aloud of plays. Sometimes that is the only way my less than nimble mind can wrap itself around some of Shakespeare. For pure enjoyment, the language of Christopher Fry's The Lady's Not for Burning and Rostund's Cyrano are a treat to hear.

Michael Dirda: My 8th grade ENglish teacher played records of both these to our class--wasn't it Jose Ferrer as Cyrano--and I remember being dazzled by the words and declamation. I wouldn't mind spending an hour in that class right now. Not the first time I've wisehd for a time machine.

Winston Salem, N.C.: Haven't done it lately, but pre-kids used to read to my wife in the car on long trips -- two favorites at the time were John McPhee Oranges on a trip to Florida and Jean Shepard's In God We Trust All Others Pay Cash on a Christmas trip home. Hard to get through the Shepard due to laughing our loud. Wonderful stories of coming of age in the Midwest. (The Christmas perennial A Christmas Story is based on this book.)

Michael Dirda: Thanks. People keep telling myh to read Shepherd. EVeryone tells me he's wonderfully funny and nostalgic, which certainly should work for me.

Washington, D.C.: Re: mystery writer Marcia Muller -- Start with her mysteries featuring Sharon McCone, such as "Leave A Message for Willie," "Pennies On a Dead Man's Shoes" or "Wolf in the Shadows." FYI, although she is less known than they are, Muller is regarded as the "dean" of the hard-boiled American female private eye genre by best-selling mystery writers Sue Grafton and Sara Paretsky. They say she started it all.

Michael Dirda: thanks

Cleveland: I once tried reading Animal Farm aloud to my husband, but we didn't get too far. I much prefer reading by myself to hearing something read aloud. Some people learn better by hearing while others learn better visually. I am definitely a visual learner.

What do you think of Christopher Morley? I just re-read Parnassus on Wheels and am now reading The Haunted Bookshop. I have amassed a collection of his books over the years but have never gotten around to reading them. I think I have found my summer reading project.

Michael Dirda: I've mostly read Morley's essays and occasoinal jottings that deal with the Baker Street Irregulars, which he co-founded. My friend Steve Rothman is our preeminent collector of Morleyana and aims to write the man's biogtraphy one of these days. Hope you enjoy your summer--this sounds like a great project.

Spring Valley, Calif.: Hope I can get this in before a blackout rolls over me! I have the Perrin book also and it is one I go back to quite a bit. Books about books, indeed, might be an interesting topic.

Michael Dirda: Books about books--I like that. Let's do that next week, ok?

Woodbridge, Va.: Michael--Every now and then the Post carries a detailed article about an author in the Style section. For example, there was an interesting portrait a few months back of that fellow who wrote The Dark Compass.

Questions: Does the book review staff have anything to do with these articles? how often do you carry them? I tend to throw the Style section out without looking at it--have I been missing something that regularly appears? Could you maybe alert us in your discussion when one of these articles has been in the paper?

Michael Dirda: NO, Style follows its own nose in these matters. In the past David Streitfeld--then the publishing reporter for Style--would let us know some of his projects, particularly since he also wrote Book Report for us. In theory, my editor Marie Arana knows what STyle is up to, but we almost never originate any of these features.

Woodbridge, Va.: Michael--here is a suggestion for those of your audience who read with pleasure but, like me, are not so good in literary criticism. I have been reading The Art of Criticism by David Lodge. The book contains short essays on such topics as point of view, names, stream of consciousness, interior monologue, lists, weather, intertextuality, magic realism, the epistolary novel, suspense, symbolism, allegory, and so forth, and he gives examples from famous novels,showing how the authors achieved various effects. I am learning a lot and can't figure out why this wasn't taught in my English lit course in college. The book cover says that some of these essays were formerly printed in the Washington Post.

Michael Dirda: Yes, we ran about half the essays in Book World. As it happens, I review Lodge's new novel this coming Sunday and open with a quote from The ARt of Criticism. Lodge is one of our best comic novelists, see Small World.

Charm City: My boyfriend makes me read stuff out loud to him all the time, because he's dyslexic so it's easier for him to process that way. I don't mind if it's stuff that I like, but John Grisham really makes me ill. (Can you recommend a legal/thriller type novelist who less ragingly misogynistic, please?)

The BEST thing to read out loud is Dave Barry's "Bad Habits," written back when he was still funny. Anything that makes you laugh so hard your stomach hurts MUST be shared!

My dad read me the whole Chronicles of Narnia when I was four. I don't remember how many months that took (he didn't read it to me all at once, of course, but a little bit ever evening for a long long time), but it's one of my favorite memories.

Michael Dirda: Charm City--I wish I lived there. I haven't kept up with Barry's books, but if you say Bad Habits is his best, I'll pick it up. I suspect many people have warm memories of being read aloud to by a parent or parents. What could be better than to snug in bed or curled up in a lap, as one's mother tells or reads an exciting story?

New York, N.Y.: Michael--
I believe someone asked about Paul Zindel? He is an author of children/adolescent fiction and a playwright. He won the Pulitzer Prize for his play "The Effects of Gamma Rays on the Man-in-the-moon Marigolds" in 1971.
Cheers!

Michael Dirda: THat's kind of what I thought, but wasn't absolutely sure. THanks for checking and saving me the trouble.

Broken Record: Listening to Jeremy Irons' rendition of Lolita makes me wonder if there is any other way to listen/read that gorgeous work.

Michael Dirda: Isn't it great? I love the voice he does for John Ray, the psychiatrist who introduces the novel. Or the lovely diminuendo of the final pargaraph: "I am thinking of aurochs and angels. . ."

Arlington, Va.: Best book to read out loud: Lolita, by Nabokov. The fluid language just pours off your tongue. The opneing paragraph is probably one of the most beautifully written and rhythmic in the English language. Unfortunately my DH doens't like Nabokov. But we do read Milne's Pooh books out loud to each other.

Michael Dirda: SEe previous message. thanks

Ohio: My husband and I started the custom of reading aloud to each other during car trips on our honeymoon in 1998. On that trip, we read short stories by Dick Francis and Agatha Christie. I'm forever reading P.G. Wodehouse aloud, although I usually have to read ahead and get my laughter out of the way first -- it spoils the rhythm otherwise. But we'll read anything if we think the other will be interested -- our last trip had us reading from "Red Metal," a book about the history of copper mining (in which his grandpa made his fortune). Car trip storyfests are something we hope to continue if we have kids, too.

As for poetry, it has to be funny or my husband's eyes glaze and he starts talking about trains (I've heard enough about SD-40s and Alcos for one lifetime, thank you).

Michael Dirda: Congratulations on what sounds like a great marriage. ANd trains are very romantic.

Ballston: Hi

Just wondering if you ever read Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey & what you thought of it.

Do you have any recommendations on historical fiction which you especially enjoyed?

thanks...

Michael Dirda: Yes, I"ve read it. Lots of fun. There have been seirous scholarly books on the same theme--ie that richard III didn't murder the princes in the tower.
Historical fiction? Try An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears, George Garrett's Death of the Fox, The Three Musketeers.

Swim-two-birds: Speaking of Nabokov and Lolita, there is an audiotape available of the great man himself reading a couple of chapters aloud. The death of Quilty is contained therein. Nabokov's can't-quite-place-it accent and his utterly deadpan reading voice round off the experience nicely.

Another great audiotape pleasure is Roald Dahl's somewhat abridged reading of "Charlie and the Choclate Factory." The old boy's misanthropy comes through loud and clear.

Michael Dirda: Didn't know about the Nabokov reading--I'll need to search for it, since he and Waugh are the two writers I collect in extenso.

Washington, D.C.: Oh, yes! Poe! Poe! Probably the best author in the world for out-loud reading (other than Wodehouse and Terry Pratchett, whom I'm constantly having to read aloud in order to explain to others why I'm laughing so hard...).
"And the silken, sad, uncertain rustling of each purple curtain..."

Michael Dirda: My dad used to recite Annabelle Lee.

Cleveland: I just remembered a great reading-aloud experience. Tillie Olsen read her entire novella "Tell Me a Riddle" out loud when she visited my college (Oberlin, by the way). Phenomenal. Also, at my former workplace we had weekly read-alouds in the summer. The most memorable (to me) were The Phantom Tollbooth, one of Richard Ford's books the title of which I can't remember (I guess it wasn't that memorable), Stephen Dunn's (sp?) poem "Loves" (am I getting the title right?), and selections of Shirley Jackson's Life Among the Savages (which I read aloud).

Michael Dirda: thanks.

Ballston, Va.: Just finished reading the first Jungle Book by Kipling to my 6-yr old son. Kipling's language is very fluid (for want of a better word) and very involving. My son kept begging "just a little more" the stinker got an extra hour before lights out!

Michael Dirda: Glad to hear that beggin still works.

Washington, D.C.: I subscribe to a 'word a day' list-serve and found 'Dirda' attached to the example sentence. Can you recall the context?

The Word of the Day for May 19 is:

Colonel Blimp -KER-nul-BLIMP- (noun) : a pompous person with out-of-date or ultraconservative views; broadly : reactionary

Example sentence: "In his later years he made himself into . . . a Colonel Blimp quivering with prejudices and jowls, eyes usually bulging with rage over some fresh indignity. . . ." (Michael Dirda, "The Washington Post," August 16, 1987)

Did you know? Colonel Blimp was a cartoon character created for London's _Evening Standard_ by New Zealand-born cartoonist David Low after World War I. The name "Blimp" came from the nickname for the observation balloons used during the war. Low's Colonel Blimp was a caricature of the archetypal elderly British Tory, a paunchy, harrumphing John Bull opposed to all change and rather dim mentally. English speakers have used the word "Colonel Blimp" to refer to characters of this type, or, broadly, to any ultraconservative person, since 1937. In fact, during World War II, British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger chose "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp" as the title of a film about an army officer who in his old age clings to the values and codes of the past.

Michael Dirda: I vaguely know the origins of the name. A couple people seem to have noticed this citation and forwarded it to me. My 15 seconds of fame.

Elkintown: Hi Mr Dirda,

My answer to today's question: John Ashbery out loud - somehow it makes more sense aloud than in your head; maybe by reading it aloud you don't spend so much time trying to figure out what it's about (and it not "being" about anything is part of what it's "about"): please the wordplay is wonderful and sibilant; lots of Ss.....

Quick question: did you find the Zuckerman trick in -American Pastoral- as annoying as I just did. One sentence saying something like "I imagine it happened like this..." and whammo, cheap po/mo author's trick. A well done trick, but.....as always thanks

Michael Dirda: thanks.

McLean, Va.: One of my brothers used to recite "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" when we were out bailing alfalfa.

It seems to me poetry works better than prose. Especially that in a romantic (ie. adventurous, stirring) vein, such as Tennyson's "Ulysses" or Coleridge's "Kublai Khan" or "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" or Keats's "La Belle Dame Sans Merci".

Michael Dirda: Yes, I know big chunks of all the poems you mention--chiefly because I used to memorize pages from Immortal Poems of the English Language as I walked to high school. One argument against busing.

Swim-two-birds: I saw "The Luzhin Defense" on Saturday. How about a chat devoted to film versions of great literature? Then I can vent about the one moment in an otherwise OK (though watered-down) adaptation which made me grit my teeth to keep from screaming "You lousy morons" at the screenwriters.

Michael Dirda: ONe moment only? It must be a pretty good film, then. Bring up this idea next week. For next Thursday, we'll take up books on books, as suggested earlier.

Michael Dirda: WEll, we seem to have come, as my late friend Reid Beddow used to say, to a convenient breakpoint. Until next THursday at 2, keep reading!

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