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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, Aug. 30, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT
This week's topic:
What I read on my summer vacation.
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
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."
The transcript follows.
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 back to Dirda on Books! I've been away on vacation--I wouldn't call it a holiday exactly--with my family in California: Yosemite, Tahoe, San Francisco. Lots of stress, a few laughs. In short a typical family vacation.
Anyway, for the next hour I'll answer questions about books, reading, reviews, Book world, what have you. So on with the show!
Washington, D.C.:
Michael,
Are you a fan of S. Millhauser? Would you consider his writing Literature? Which of his books is your favorite? Thanks
Michael Dirda: Am I a fan of Steven Millhauser? Could there be any doubt? I've reviewed four or five of his books, written a long profile of him for Encarta online, and seen his last book, the novella Enchanted Night, turned into a wonderful play at George Washington University. SM is one of my favorite living writers, especially since his witty, wistful sensibility is close to my own. As for my favorite book? A hard call: I'm an admirer of From the Realm of Morpheus (which the publisher made him chop up), as well as his famous first book, Edwin Mullhouse. But his genius is best shown in his short stories and novellas, so I guess I'd pick Little Kingdoms or THe Barnum Museum as my favorite collections.
Virginia:
What I read this summer:
Wallace Stegner's -Angle of Repose- -
after being recommended by friends for
years, finally got around to it. Absolutely
stunning, well worthy of its 1972 Pulitzer.
A must-read.
Art Buchwald's -Stella in Heaven- - a
hilarious conversation between a
widower and his recently-deceased wife
talking to him from heaven (run by Moses
with St. Peter's assistance, and living in
the Ritz-Carleton section). Lightweight but
fun.
Michael Dirda: Thanks. I've never read much Stegner--only a few stories. People keep recommending Angle of Repose, so I may try it one of these days. Art Buchwald's book sounds a little like one of myh favorite novels by Stanley Elkin, The Living End.
Arlington, Va.:
Earlier this year, you mentioned that you were writing a piece regarding Evelyn Waugh's WWII trilogy, but I haven't seen it in Book World. Did you abandon the project? Also, when will Book World run the fall preview? Thanks a lot.
Michael Dirda: The Fall preview will be out on September 9. I wrote about the Sword of Honour trilogy for the Catholic magazine, The Crisis. I was raised Catholic, retain considerable interest in Catholicism and religion, and envy those with belief, but am, alas, not capable of it myself.
Last Sunday's Piece:
No question -- just a tribute to one of the most moving things I have ever read. You captured an ambiguity in the life of a reader that I could never articulate. I wish you would pull a Yardley and do two or three pieces a week, but frankly you are so much better than Yardley I wouldn't want the quality of your work to suffer. Thanks for a wonderful work of art. washingtonpost.com:
Readings (Washington Post, Aug. 23, 2001)
Michael Dirda: Thanks for the compliments. People do seem to have liked that column: I worried that it might seem too self-indulgent and personal. At the moment, I'm thinking of giving up such essays for a while and trying to focus on writing rediscoveries of neglected writers and Excursion pieces. But what I really should do is, as I say at the end, start a real book.
I've sometimes tried to imaginewhether I could write three times a week, as Jon does. I suspect I'd burn out after a year or two. As it is, I wonder whether I have anything new to say. But then I'm a troubled sort of guy, which I suppose is what makes my writing work.
I have nothing but admiration for how JY has managed to keep up the pace for 20 years.
Schoenberg Bavaria Germany:
Dear Michael Dirda, just to let you know that you have a fan in the Bavarian outback: I enjoyed your essay on the bookwormish way of life thoroughly, sounds very familiar to me. Thank you as well for the articles on Ferdinand Mount and Pessoa - and every now and then I follow your book discussions which are full of hints for foreign lovers of the english/american literary scene. MY summer reading, by the way, was Isabel Bolton (great)but also W.G. Sebalds "Austerlitz" : I wonder if you'll write about this highly fascinating german author as his book will be out in english soon?
Thank you again and please excuse language flaws: reading english is by far easier than writing. Angela
Michael Dirda: Dear Angela,
Thank you for the kind words on my work. Glad you liked my review of Mount's Fairness--it's one of my favorites too, along with the piece on Sisman's book on the creation of Boswell's Life of Johnson. I'm not supposed to say who is reviewing Austerlitz for Book World, but you might just be right in your guess. I recently bought a first edition of Isabel Bolton's Do I Wake or Sleep? and look forward to reading her novels. How did you discover me, so to speak, in Bavaria? I once spent a blissful weekend in a Gasthaus near the Black Woods. Alas, all too many years ago. Perhaps you were the blonde Madchen I flirted with?
Pleasantville, N.Y.:
I read A.S Byatt's The Game and then Possession. I thoroughly enjoyed both as I never would have thought I would, reading about the dry academic lives of scholars. I particularly like her portrayal of her women characters -- they have both flaws and steely qualities very similar to women I've known.
Michael Dirda: Yes, Possession in particular is a wonderful book. Oddly, academics often tend to be rather over-the-top characters, wild and passoinate, and not dryasdust at all. At least in my experience.
Speaking of Sword of Honour:
It's just been produced as a BBC mini-series, adapted by novelist William Boyd. I don't know if it'll air in the U.S. It's out on video, but again, the format might not fit American players.
Michael Dirda: I asked if it was going to show here, but was told that hadn't been decided yet. Maybe it's too British. but they did bring over Wives and Daughters and Gormenghast, so we'll see. I didn't much like the cinematic Scoop, but, like most people, loved Brideshead, especially those early segments.
Silver Spring, Md.:
About ten days ago Poetry Daily (poems.com, not to be confused with the odeous poem.com) ran a VERY funny poem by Andrew Hudgins that simultaneously parodied Yeats (Wild Swans at Coole and Leda and the Swan) and Gwendolyn Brooks "We Cool" poem.
Not ONE of my coworkers got it. Not ONE. I was astounded. Sure, I work in a nest of programmers. But someone must be making these people read something in high school or college, right?
Should I be so surprised? Does anybody else outside of universities work with colleagues who could be expected to get this jeux d'esprit?
Michael Dirda: Well, those are famous poems, so you would expect at least a few people to pick on them. But nobody reads enough in my view and schools should spend more time on the essential books and less on the currently fashionable ones. STill, your programmer colleagues would be shocked to learn that I know nothing about Quark or Assembly Language--though I once wrote financial planning manuals for banks using APL Plus.
Downtown, D.C.:
In all your talk about young people's literature and fantasy, I haven't heard you mention Ruth Arthur. Her books usually feature teenage girls going through some kind of transition in the modern day, who become connected with, literally, ghosts from the past. They're wonderfully creepy and scary. I'm taking one with me for beach reading next week.
I'm also taking Furst's, "Kingdom of Shadows," Jimmy Breslin's "I Don't Want to Go to Jail," some mystery paperback set in Elizabethian York, and Bartle Bull's "The Devil's Oasis". What's your take on these?
Michael Dirda: I've never read Ruth ARthur, perhaps in part because I have three boys. Her books do sound good. Your beach reading sounds pretty enjoyable, though I might throw in one or two heavier books or classics--just in case you run out or none of these proves congenial.
Herndon, Va.:
I have spent a good portion of my summer vacation reading the Oprah books. They aren't my first choice, but they are plentiful at used book stores. Money is really tight this year.
Needless to say, I am really tired of reading "depressive women literature." Do you have any suggestions for contemporary women writers that don't have that formulatic rise from the ashes through the school of hard knocks?
Michael Dirda: THere are, indeed, so many of these books that one of our editors is called our Depressive Women's Novel editor. Have you ever read Georgette Heyer's witty Regency Romances? Try Spring Muslin or Regency Buck. Or STella Gibbon's hilarious Cold Comfort Farm? Or Iris Murdoch and Muriel Spark? These are all women writers who are more witty than depressing.
North Tonawanda, N.Y.:
A long, long time ago in a high school far, far away we read Boswell's THE LIFE OF JOHNSON. with the recent publication of Adam Sisman's excellent BOSWELL'S PRESUMPTUOUS TASK, I've started rereading the luscious Everyman's edition of THE LIFE. I know these are a long way from beach books, but isn't summer the perfect time to tackle some classics?
Michael Dirda: You probably didn't see my review of the Sisman, in which I extol the Life of Johnson as the most entertaining book in English literature. And yes, it makes an ideal beach book, one easy to pick up and put down, and filled with amusing things on every page.
Washington, D.C.:
Welcome back. No question, but your mention of Yosemite brought back very fond memories of my own visits there - El Capitan, Half Dome, Glacier Point, Tuolomne Meadows, the towering water falls. I once read John Muir's book on Yosemite, written in the heat of battle over whether San Fran would be permitted to construct a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Canyon. It closes wonderfully - "Dam Hetch Hetchy!" - and then suggests that we go on and dam our cathedrals, as well. Very moving.
I've been struggling over my own reading this year. Not sure the reason for the flagging interest, but it resulted in your latest column striking a chord within. Perhaps when I get my copy of the Lyttleton-Hart-Davis letters (a selection recently republished by the folks at The Common Reader) it will help perk me up. Take care.
P.S. When you write your book, I will be first in line at the bookstore to buy it.
Michael Dirda: Thanks for kind words. I hope Common Reader isn't abridging the letters--they were brought out entire by Academy CHicago a few years back. Not to blow my own horn, but you might look out for my essay collection while I work on a real book: Readings: Essays and LIterary Entertainments (Indiana UP, 2000).
Silver Spring, Md.:
Just so you know, NO programmers bother with Quark. That's for publication and layout, and isn't much used any more as there are more fashonable and simpler tools.
And only a few hardcore people write assembly language - it is now the rough equivalent of pre-Chaucerian English as it is confined to extreme specialists.
They MIGHT be shocked if you couldn't find the Favorites pane on your browser.
- Another sometime manual writer
Michael Dirda: See how out of it I am! Personaly, I deeply admire the prolific Donald E. Westlake who has written some 75 novels wtih a Super Silent Royal Manual typewriter.
Contemporary female writers:
Herndon should look at Barbara Kingsolver's books.
Michael Dirda: THanks
22201:
Hi Michael: I'm so glad that you're back. I've missed the chats.
My question: I love to read short stories of all sorts. Do you have any particular magazines with stories that you like? Aside from the regular New Yorker, Harper's, etc.
I was wondering what you though of some of the smaller such as Zoetrope and the like?
Thanks
Michael Dirda: I"m more a book reader than a magazine reader, exepting the TLS, Specator and a handful of others. I think the year's best anthologies are a good way to keep up with short fiction, or the annual Pushcart Prize volumes. Also, the genre magazines, such as Asimov's.
Washington, D.C.:
I also like Possession very much, although I groaned out loud when when the "love interest" developed between the academics. Why do so many books resort to that cliche?
I was also a tad disappointed to hear about the movie version coming out next year. The character of Roland was changed from a pasty Englishman to a handsome American. Better pairing for Gwyneth Paltrow as Maud, I guess.
Michael Dirda: WEll, we'll see. I correspond with Byatt and she mentioned that the movie was in the works. I think she's tickled at the prospect.
McLean, Va.:
Mr. Dirda,
Did you realize the next book scheduled for the Post's online bookclub was written by (gasp!) Barbara Kingsolver?
Good gracious, opening the doors to middlebrow writers? What next, Anne Tyler? You must be aghast!
Michael Dirda: Each of my colleagues picks a book he or she wants to discuss. I never said that Barbara Kingsolver wasn't a good writer, only that she didn't interest me personally. But so many people have taken me to task over this, I've come round to the feeling that I might be dead wrong in not reading her. WEll, the following month you get me on Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping.
Washington, D.C.:
Michael,
Is it piling on to say how much I enjoyed your most recent Book World column? Just terrific, really. Coming from a similar blue collar background like yours, I wonder if our ambivalence about literature is a result of that background? Like being rich, it takes a few generations to handle it with aplomb and a sort of native comfortableness.
Michael Dirda: Oh, I'm sure myh working class background plays its part. My uncles used to say to me "You still in school. Seems you been in school the longest time." And I still find it hard to regard anything as work that doesn't leave you dirty and bone-tired at the end of the day. Shoveling scale--the dried off "skin" of red-hot ingots--in an underground tunnel during night shift--once my summer job--now that's work. Glad you liked the piece.
Washington, D.C.:
I read voraciously when I was young and then got distracted by life, but I find myself recently being drawn back into the reading life. Strangely enough, I also read Angle of Repose this summer. I'm now overwhelmed by choice. Do you have any advice for someone looking for help in choosing what to read?
Michael Dirda: Pick up Readings, by me, and you should find plenty of suggestions. Read Book World. Look for The LIfetime Reading Plan, by Clifton Fadiman.
Radford, Va:
Are you acquainted with Isabel Colegate, and in partular with her novel, The Shooting Party? It seemed to me to be a striking vignette of life in England -- upstairs and downstairs -- on the eve of WW I. Any observations about this, or others of hers?
Barry
Michael Dirda: Havne't read the book, but unusually I have seen the movie. Liked it, but didn't love it.
Takoma Park, Md.:
Suggestions for Herndon:
Get out of the used bookstores and to a library -- far more choice most of the time.
Try Alice Munro, whose characters sometimes experience hard lives but who is far from formulaic. Also Margaret Atwood of course, plenty of wit and NO INCEST to speak of.
While we're being Canadian, look for Diane Schoemperlin (sp?). Her earlier novels are lots of fun, and she has a new one in which the Virgin Mary comes and spends a week living at a woman writer's house. Both the BVM character and the writer character are cheerful and down to earth, at least so far.
Also try Ursula Hegi, but not Salt Dancers or Emma Blau. Intrusions is VERY funny. The German-history ones are solid good, though Bad Things happen to people.
Hope this helps.
Michael Dirda: thanks. I love your description of Atwood's books.
Pakoma Tark, Md.:
I was surprised by one thing in your recent article about reading - I also know Roethke's "woman, lovely in her bones" poem, but I don't think it's chief value is to impress people. I'm glad I know it because Roethke has expressed a complex emotion in better language than I can muster. When I have that emotion or one of its relatives, I can think of Roethke and know even more than I did before what I was thinking and feeling.
Michael Dirda: Hmm. That essay is a lot more complex and personal a piece than it looks: I chose the Roethke for a reason--that's all I can say. What is that complex emotion summoned up by the poem, by the way? Something between admiration for female beauty and the lineaments of gratified desire?
20036:
You want your high-brow, weighty summer reading? I got your high-brow, weighty summer reading. So far this summer I've read "Beowulf" (unfortunately not the new translation), "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight," and right now I'm in the middle of "The Song of Roland". Top that!
Michael Dirda: Hope Beowulf was in Old ENglish or you don't get any extra credit. And Gawain should be in Tolkien's edition of the MIddle English text. And Roland in the edition by, was it Jean Frappier? My memory is going. IN truth I once read all three in their original languages. But I was young and smart in those days and though I was invincible. DIsillusionment soon set in.
Boston, Mass:
Beautifully written piece about reading, Michael. The pirate line reminded me of one of my favorite Wallace Stevens poems, and I think it fits nicely:
Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock
The houses are haunted
By white night-gowns.
None are green,
Or purple with green rings,
Or green with yellow rings,
Or yellow with blue rings.
None of them are strange,
With socks of lace
And beaded ceintures.
People are not going
To dream of baboons and periwinkles.
Only, here and there, an old sailor,
Drunk and asleep in his boots,
Catches tigers
In red weather.
Michael Dirda: THanks. Stevens--a god.
Takoma Park, Md.:
More good female writers who aren't in the Depressive Rise mode:
Margaret Drabble - always humerous and always brisk, real-ish lives. Repeats herself a but, but who doesnt? Realms of Gold is breathtakingly good.
Lots of good stuff on relationships between sisters, not amazingly as she is the sister of Ms. Byatt aforementioned.
Also Kate Atkinson, Behind the scenes at the Museum. Family stuff but again brisk and fascinating.
Dissent on Kingsolver -- I get tired of the Perfect Guy Ex Machina who rescues her female characters.
Michael Dirda: THanks
Also from Herndon:
For Herndon: Try Penelope Lively: Moontiger, City of the Mind, etc.
Michael Dirda: Thanks
Manassas, Va.:
I read Salman Rushdie's "The Ground Beneath Her Feet" and found it absolutely exhilarating. I think he's an amazing prose writer. The imaginary worlds he weaves are just fabulous. Any word on his next?
EK
Michael Dirda: New one just out--about an Indian celebirty in New YOrk. I reviewed and loved The Moor's LAst SIgh. I suspect Rushdie the man is something of a shit, but he's a terrific writer.
Cambridge, Mass.:
Mr. Dirda,
Welcome back! Just started reading Goethe's "Faust, Parts One and Two" translated by Stuart Atkins. Not the usual summer reading, I'll admit, but I am quite enjoying Goethe's presentation of the derailed Doctor. I can't help thinking, however, that Goethe is rapidly becoming an "acquired taste" in the same way Lawrence, Carlyle and Hardy have become. What is your opinion of Goethe? Do you think his worldview and themes speak to our present age? Why do some writers (i.e. Henry James, Austen, Joyce) enjoy continual popularity while others (Walter Scott, Voltaire, Goethe?) remain at arm's length?
Michael Dirda: THis is a complex question, but you're certainly right: Goethe is a classic of World literature, but not a writer much read in ANglo Saxon countries. Why do reputations rise and fall? WHy do writers stop speaking to people? There are books to be written on this topic.
Spring Valley, Calif.:
Michael, hope you had a good vacation. Did you leave your heart anywhere?
Your column on being bookish got me thinking. I have wondered sometimes why I am one of life's spectators and I think my early attachment to books has inclined me in that direction. I think you should have been George Plimpton. Come to think of it, isn't there room for at least one more?
Michael Dirda: Hmm. Well, we'll see. I didn't leave my heart in San Francisco--but its exact location is a bit problematic.
Curious Jorge:
Per your piece last Sunday, why do you carry a knife? Is the Post newsroom such a cutthroat (sorry) place in which to tread? Have you ever had to use it?
Michael Dirda: My father taught me that a man always carried a knife and a handkerchief, and so I do. I use the knife all the time. Mostly, to open packages or bottles of wine. But it feels good in my pocket. Now, of course, it's a Swiss army knife, though this was not always the case.
Arlington, Va.:
Recalling your praise for the Gormenghast novels of Mervyn Peake, I delved into the trilogy and also took a look at the BBC adaptation on PBS earlier this summer. The books are beautifully written and profound, but also witty and very entertaining. The BBC production was a treat, with many visual images remarkably faithful to the text. Thank you for calling attention to Peake's work. Without your recommendation, I probably never would have looked into it.
Michael Dirda: THanks. Glad you enjoy Peake. A strange but brilliant writer.
Washington, D.C.:
Hey Michael:
Welcome back and hope you had a decent vacation.
Currently I'm reading two books I've been waiting years to read but couldn't track down copies nor find the time.
-The first is "The Morro Castle: Tragedy At Sea" about the famous 1934 shipwreck & fire off the Asbury Park New Jersey coast. Perhaps Morro Castle(the real one in Cuba for which the ship was named)would make a great vacation destination one day. Whatcha think?
-The second is Paul Brickhill's "The Great Escape" of which an excellent 1963 movie was made and which of lately has been featured on different History Channel specials.
Michael Dirda: THanks for the recommendations.
Pakoma Tark, Md.:
If I could express the Roethke emotion in words, it would be that poem. But I thought it was closer to longing and regret than gratified desire in the present.
Moon Tiger is Penelope Lively's best known, and maybe her best, but her earlier ones are also terrific. Spiderweb was a falling off in quality and utterly predictable in plot, sadly.
Michael Dirda: yes. And when she moved she moved more ways than one. It's a painful poem for me.
Buffalo, N.Y.:
Have you read any of the NESFA science fiction collections? I just finished their wonderful Fredric Brown collection, FROM THESE ASHES. Next on my list, their William Tenn colleciton, IMMODEST PROPOSALS. These are great books!
Michael Dirda: I keep meaing to write on brown and Tenn--two writers I have long admired: I own all of Tenn's story collections. Witty, dark-humoroed, dazzling stuff. And Brown, of course, is very naughty at times: Hans Carvel's Ring, or the Nightmare short short where the guy ends up sleeping with his sister.
Morgantown, W.V.:
Mr. Dirda,
Thanks for the return of your weekly book discussion. Yes, don't we all have fond memories of family summer vacations? If only someone did "Home for the Holidays" with this theme!
For summer reading I finished Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" as well as "God, Country, Notre Dame" by Father Hesburgh. Speaking of (auto-)biographies, I have two questions.
First, what do you think of Manchester's public announcement that he's unlikely to complete volume three of his Churchill series?
Second, what would you recommend for other current autobiographies?
Michael Dirda: I don't hasve any opinion about Manchester. As for autobiographies--I think ANthony Burgess's LIttle Wilson and Big God, and You've Had Your Time are splendidly rumbustious memoirs.
And that, friends, is about it for this week. Till next Thursday at 2, keep reading!
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