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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, Feb. 28, 2002; 2 p.m. EST
THIS WEEK'S TOPIC: The happiest book you can think of.
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda took your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or describing his travels to, say, a P.G. Wodehouse Convention. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. He particularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts -- just the sort of range you'd expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner in criticism (1993).
These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. In the fall of 2000 Indiana University Press published "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments," a selection from Dirda's Book World columns. He hopes to bring out a companion volume soon.
Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He'd also like to spend six months in Florida writing a book that would become a runaway best seller, a critical success, and the hottest cinematic property of the year. A guy can daydream, right?
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.
Cleveland Park:
Hey Michael. Wasn't it Tolstoy that said everyone's happiness is the same? I am a prodigious reader and I can't think of any I would call happy...
Could Lord of the Rings be considered happy, since good overcomes evil in the end (I think, still reading it)?
Michael Dirda: WElcome to Dirda on Books. THis week we talk about Happy Reading--or anything else pertaining to books, literature, Book World, reviewing, the Post. It's sunny and cold here in DC, the kind of weather that one imagines to fit the famous opening sentence of 1984: It was a bright cold day in April and the clocks were striking thirteen.
Anyway, on with this week's show!
Tolstoy, wrongly, said that happy families were all alike. THe Gilbreth family in Cheaper by the Dozen seemed pretty happy to me.
Lord of the Rings--happy? well, sort of. In the sense that Dante's poem is a comedy. But a very chastened, subdued kind of happiness, at best, and knowledge that the battles are never really over.
Arlington, Va.:
I have two entries. For adults, Fanny Flagg's Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man is a joy to read. I think it is much more entertaining than "Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe" which I consider a classic. For the catagory "a children's book that adults will love" is "Bud, Not Buddy" by Christopher Paul Curtis. I couldn't stop laughing. It's my nine year old nephew's favorite book (outside of all the Harry Potter book) and he challenged me to read it. It's about a 10 year old black boy who runs away from an orphanage in Flint, Michigan in the 1930's. He goes on a search to find his father. These are definately must reads. You won't be able to put either book down. Enjoy!
Michael Dirda: THanks for the recommednation. I think Daniel Pinkwater is the funniest writer for children. But he can be a little eccentric in his humor.
Venus:
Happiest books? Can one get deep intellectual and emotional satisfaction from reading a happy book? I don't know. The only happy book I can think of right now is "Persuasion," my favorite Jane Austen novel. But I don't like it because of its happy ending. I like it because it profoundly tells a story about love, family and friendship, and it brilliantly splays open the hypocrisy of the day's upper-crust country society -- all this is accomplished with Jane's light touch, the touch of a masterful writer. Happy? Who cares?
Michael Dirda: Happy, who cares? I see your point, but those of us who slog daily through a slough of despond often yearn for any ray of sunshine. I wish I believed it was darkest before the dawn.
But Austen is a solace--so wise, so pitiless, so forgiving. WE should all be more like her.
Baltimore, Md.:
The happiest book I can think of is the play "You Can't Take it With You." It's very funny and it characterizes those great screwball comedies of the 1930s. What's even more remarkable is that it was written during the depths of the great depression, when there wasn't a lot to feel good about. My favorite part was the grandfather taking on an agent from the IRS. I read it three times and couldn't stop laughing.
Michael Dirda: You know, I don't think I"ve ever read or seen this play--although I have some dim memory that we had it in a high school textbook. I know I've never seen The Man Who Came to Dinner. Was the play ever filmed, do you know?
Winston-Salem, N.C.:
Know this week is supposed to be Happy books after last week's downer, but since I missed last week thought I would mention the Sjowal/Wahloo (?) Martin Beck mysteries which have THE most dreary atmosophere of all mysteries, though they are wonderful. In addition regarding your comments about dogs/children getting killed, one of my favorite moments from the TV series Friends is where the perenially sunny Phoebe learns that her aunt simply stopped movies before the bad parts. As the crew is watching Old Yeller she wonders why they think it will end sadly and she learns of her aunt's bowdlerizing to her dismay. Perhaps like Hitchcock who said the difference between comedy and horror is where you focus the camera (a man disappearing suddenly down an open manhole or his twisted dead body at the bottom) the difference between a happy ending and a sad one is where the narrative ends. As for happy books, if that's meant as synonymous with funny, I'd vote for anything by Calvin Trillin or Christopher Buckley. Thank You for Smoking is one of the funniest books I have read, though my neighbors here in town might not share that opinion.
Michael Dirda: Chris, I've told you not to write from North Carolina.
Did you see that in our holiday survey Jonathan Franzen picked The Laughing Policeman as one of his favorite comfort books?
Bethesda, Md.:
Hi,
A couple weeks ago, you mentioned that Persuasion was your favorite book title. (Austen could really choose the hell out of a title, huh?) The best titles, I think, are those that are not merely strong on their own, but echo signiicantly throughout the work itself. The title of "Persuasion" makes the whole book more interesting. Any other literary titles -- of novels, poems, or whatever else -- that you find patricularly strong?
A couple of mine:
Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu
Shakespeare's Measure for Measure
Wallace Stevens' Peter Quince at the Clavier
And, for a different sort of excellence, there's Elmore Leonard's Freaky-Deaky
Michael Dirda: Other great titles? Gone with the Wind. The Third Policeman. Sanctuary.
I think hte Proust title is too plain a statement of the book's purpose. Freaky Deaky seems a little offputting to me. ANd Peter Quince at the Clavier--well STevens was the master of clever, surreal titles: I've always liked The Revolutionists Stop for Orangeade.
Arlington, Va.:
Is Book World doing a preview of books to be released this spring? Thanks
Michael Dirda: I don't think so. We do a fall forecast, but no one's talked about a spring version. Don't know why.
Washington, D.C.:
Sending early, since I will be in meetings all afternoon.
I just started reading "My Ears Are Bent," the collection of pre-New Yorker work by Joseph Mitchell. The intro, which he wrote when the book was first published in 1938, occasionally ridicules the educator Nicholas Murray Butler ("Even the semicolons are pompous on his mimeographed statements"). Having not heard of NMB, I looked him up ... President of Columbia Univerity, Nobel Peace Prize in 1931 ... wow. Kind of fun to see a view probably not expressed much these days.
Michael Dirda: Those early educationalists could be quite full of themselves. It was a serious era.
Hope you like Ears. The best MItchell, in fact the rest of MItchell, is in Up in the Old Hotel. My favorite modern journalist/profiler/flaneur.
Towson, Md.:
What do we mean by happy books? I can give you laugh out loud funny books, but happy? I'm not sure I know what that means. Would you consider Wordsworth a happy poet to read?
Michael Dirda: No. I don't think of Wordsworth as happy. Too much about losing the splendor in the grass. Even Lucy is dead. And one can only take so many daffodils.
wiredog:
Happy books? C.S. Lewis's Narnia books. Much of Mark Twain's work. A funny one is "Bimbos of the Death Sun," but you have to have gone to SF cons to truly appreciate it.
Michael Dirda: EVeryone should go to an sf con. Sharon McCrumb is the author, by the way, and there's a sequel, the title of which escapes me. Narnia--happy? Too religiose for my taste.
Titles? You want Titles?:
Many chapter titles in Pooh (the real thing, not the Disney bowdlerization) are great. Not to mention most of Frank O'Hara's poem titles.
My own unwritten favorite is "Having a Nice Day is the Best Revenge," which would be a parody of course.
Michael Dirda: Yes, O'Hara's poems do make one feel good. Especially LUnch Poems.
The end of the Pooh saga is, of course, almost unbearably wistful.
Washington, D.C.:
Happiest book: Proust's Recherche --- I was so happy I'd actually finished it.
Michael Dirda: Nice.
New York, N.Y.:
Happiest book I ever read? "Thank You, Jeeves" by P.G. Wodehouse rushes to mind.
I wanted to propose a subject for another week: What books or stories moved you to emote out loud? Two that moved me to tears were "Middlemarch," which I read in two sittings on a weekend, and Raymond Carver's story "A Small, Good Thing," which did it to me twice.
Michael Dirda: Both good books. Make that a great novel and a really good story. The ending to Middlemarch about our loves being better because of forgotten people "who rest in unvisited tombs." Wonderful.
Takoma Park, Md.:
As for the Gilbreth's, hardly anybody notices that Cheaper by the Dozen has a footnote in which it is noted that one of the dozen died of typhus or typhoid as a young teenager. there never WERE a dozen children at once.
Still, the family is happy and the book sunny beyond measure.
Michael Dirda: thanks. I never noticed that footnote.
Gaithersburg, Md.:
Well, if it's solace you're after, comfort may be the operative feeling -- what's your most comfortable (or comforting) book?
Michael Dirda: My own commonplace book.
Takoma Park, Md.:
Some of Laurie Colwin's books are full of almost purely happy stories.
And Gerald Durrell's My Family and Other Animals. Funny, happy AND joyous.
And the Betsy-Tacy books of Maud Hart Lovelace. Sure the high school books have some terrible teenage moments, but the overall tenor is pure sunshine.
Michael Dirda: I love that Colwin story, "My Mistress," but have never read Durrell's book--though many people tell me it's very funny--nor the Betsy Tacy books which sound dreadful, but I guess aren't.
Harrisburg, Pa.:
"All happy families are more or less dissimilar; all unhappy ones are more or less alike." Is that closer to the target?
If I remember correctly, "Humphry Clinker" was a very happy novel, by a wonderfully cranky man.
Michael Dirda: Closer. I think the unhappy ones are also unhappy in their own ways--though the things that make us unhappy seem to be clear, while those that make us happy remain elusive and vague. Perhaps even now, when I feel I've been unhappy for the past year or so, I will look back on this period and be grateful for it, for the unacknowledged happiness it contained and I failed to perceive.
Speaking of Nicholas Murray Butler:
Butler once introduced William Howard Taft at a dinner and made some wisecrack about how Taft must be pregnant, judging from his waistline. Taft then began his speech by saying that it was indeed true that he and Mrs. Taft were expecting: "And if it is a boy, we shall name it George Washington, after the father of our country. If it is a girl, we shall name it Betsy Ross, after the mother of our flag. But if it should turn out to be nothing but a great gust of wind, we shall name it Nicholas Murray Butler."
Michael Dirda: Nice comeback.
Arlington, Va.:
Anything by David Sedaris. "Naked," "Barrel Fever." He is truly one of the funniest people alive. You find yourself laughing and feeling sorry for him at the same time for the semi-autobiographical stories he writes.
Michael Dirda: I've never appreciated Sedaris--partly I think out of submerged envy. I too often write stuff that is funny and wistful--So why ain't I on the radio and famous? The short answer must be that he's funnier and wistfuller, but I'm not prepared to concede that.
Washington, D.C.:
Hi Michael, it wasn't a book, but the article in yesterday's Kids Post about the guy who discovered an enormous piece of fossilized dinosaur vomit made me laugh out loud on the bus. Reading about this guy, who was ecstatic to have found such a thing, made me really happy. In fact, I'm still smiling thinking about it. washingtonpost.com:
"Jurassic Barf," (Post, Feb. 27)
Michael Dirda: THanks. Great head from Kids Post too.
Towson, Md.:
The follow-up McCrumb would be "Zombies of the Gene Pool."
Michael Dirda: Yes. I get it mixed up with Vampire Queens of Sodom, or something like that.
Palookaville:
One happy book that I loved as a kid was Jesse Stuart's "The Thread That Runs So True," about the pleasures of teaching in a one-room Kentucky school. Otherwise it's hard to think of a purely happy books, but happy parts come to mind, like the ending of David Copperfield, Kitty and Levin's married llife, or Christopher Tietgen's times with Valentine Wannop in Parade's end.
Michael Dirda: Ah, jesse stuart. I still remember how he taught the kids to learn and then took his little class to some kind of academic championship. He is, I fear, an almost forgotten writer.
Betsy-Tacy Books:
They are almost purely girl books, but far from dreadful.
Full of incident, have rising character arcs, shed light on a period of the past, and written extremely well, with sly humor and lots of compression.
Also, unlike the Little House books, there are no overwrought tragedies and no questionable period racism.
Michael Dirda: Pity I didn't have daughters. Perhaps granddaughters one of these days.
Chicago, Ill.:
I saw a very well done performance of "As You Like It" last night, and fell in love with Rosalind (the actress and the character). That play has got to be one of the happiest ever, so joyous at times that it almost feels forced.
Michael Dirda: Rosalind is arguably the greatest woman in Shakespeare--and it's hard not to fall in love with her.
Chicago, Ill.:
The happiest story I've ever read is "One
Ordinary Day, With Peanuts," by Shirley
Jackson (yes, "The Lottery" Shirley
Jackson).
Angela Thirkell's Barsetshire books are
very happy, too. Happy people, happy
endings, even though there's a war on
and no one can get good butter.
Jan Karon's Mitford books are almost too
happy at times, and a little too religious.
But the characters are real (even God,
who I don't truck with as a fictional
character outside the bible, as a whole).
Most of the Patrick O'Brien books are
happy, or at least the happiness that
comes from well-deserved pain. Except
for the one where Jack is on shore... Post
Captain? That one is very sad.
Michael Dirda: YOu're kidding about the Jackson, no?
Thirkell I have on a shelf, and mean to try. My old friend Connie Casey, a fine journalist, gardener and sister of novelist John Casey,always wanted to write a book on Thirkell.
Post-Captain is one of my favorites in the series. Almost Proustian at the end.
Arlington, Va.:
More of the kids' books appealing to adults: Joan Aiken's books. "Dido and Pa," etc. Also, the illustrations for the covers of her novels were all done by Edward Gorey. So, some eye candy too.
Michael Dirda: Aiken--a god. I reviewed a couple of her books over the years and she nearl yalways sent me a note of appreciation. I'm hoping to meet her next month at a conference on the fantastic in the arts.
Arlington, Va.:
Steinbeck's "Tortilla Flats." How can you not laugh when there's a DOG named "Senor Alec Thompson?"
Michael Dirda: thanks. you're right
North Tonawanda, N.Y.:
I know it sounds crazy, but Jack Vance's "The Dying Earth" is full of good humor and happiness. For those who were around in the 1960s and 1970s, Carter Brown's zany paperback mysteries starring bosomy Mavis kept a smile on lips.
Michael Dirda: Yes, Vance is often funny, especially in the Cugel stories: THe Eyes of the Overworld and Cugel Saga. All about the misadventures of a lecherous thief and con man, whose adventures are described in a tongue in cheeck elevated rococo manner.
I remember those sexy Carter Brown covers, but don't think the one or two mysteries I read made much of an impression. Spillane had hot covers too, and much cleverer plotting. "HOw could you do it, MIke?" I didn't have much time, but I think I got it in. "It was easy."
Dreaming of the Yorkshire Dales:
James Herriott's books are all pretty happy. I've read them all probably a dozen times each because they make me smile or laugh out loud every time.
Michael Dirda: Gosh, a dozen times. They must be good.
Arlington, Va.:
So Michael,
I hear you like to party with local scribe
Bob Girardi.
Tell us, is he a sensitive artiste or a gun wielding wackoo?
Michael Dirda: Both
Chantilly, Va.:
Happy books: "Anne of Green Gables" by L.M. Montgomery
(actually the whole series is happy, unless you count the rilla series). Timeless lessons for us all.
Michael Dirda: thanks.
Washington, D.C.:
Mr. Dirda,
A local bookstore (Chapters) hosted a reading on Friday by Richard Ford, but to get in to hear him you had to buy his new book? Whiff whiff, Denmark.
How do you feel about this kind of thing.
Michael Dirda: I don't have strong views. They usually only do that with a real sellout author--it's a way to make a little money, and bookstores do need to do that, and to keep the throng manageable.
New York:
Why exactly is it that happiness cannot be intellectual, or emotionally satisfying, or deep? It seems in literature that there is a trend towards thinking that anything happy, or with a happy ending, is less legitimate, less lofty, less worthy. That seems to me to be silly. A depressing ending does not guarantee a good read -- it seems to me good literature is in the execution, and how it evokes emotion or thought in one, not in the actual emotion evoked.
I'm not able to articulate this as well as i'd like, but my point is that it seems wrong to limit quality to only certain kinds of approved reactions.
Michael Dirda: WEll, there are a lot of comic dramas and novels in the world, and most of them close with a wedding and happiness all around. Nothing wrong with that. VEry inspiring in fact. But hardly true to life. And that's, I think, why people find such comic work slightly artificial. Happiness is so evanescent, so much so that while it is being looked for has almost always already passed. Happiness is usually a byproduct of something else--satisfying work, a difficult job accomplished, caring for children or the needy, sex (when not followed by tristitia post coitum).
Annapolis, Md.:
Mr. Dirda:
It is ironic that, given this week's topic, "Middlemarch" got a mention (though qualified as being not a happy book, but a book to cause emotion.) It is, I think, the saddest book I've ever read. In any case, I certainly didn't read it in two sittings on a weekend; I think the interlocutor who claimed this is either ten times the person I am, or a teller of happy stories him or herself.
My nomination for happiest book is itself a little ironic. Aristotle's "Nicomachean Ethics" is a whole book about happiness: about its status as a human good, its definition, and the elements of a life that is successfully happy. The Ethics takes a stand on happiness -- it is not pleasure (though Aristotle admits that it is nevertheless hard to happy without some pleasure) but rather closely connected with virtue. There are whole chapters about things like friendship and love. To finish the Ethics is to begin life again, and with ancient optimism.
Michael Dirda: Hmm. Happiness and virtue. So they say. But why then do we so often feel unhappy when we follow the dictates of virtue, conscience, tradition? A woman falls in love with a man not her husband, but stays with her spouse out of a sense of duty, obligation to her children, what have you. No doubt there are satisfactions from doing the Right Thing, but I suspect there are many evenings spent staring off into space, sighing, and yearning for the path not taken. Or thinking, again and again, that it might not be too late to take that path anyway.
About Shirley Jackson:
Not kidding about the Jackson. I really
loved the idea behind that story -- I don't
want to go into because I don't want to
ruin it for everyone. But one of the
characters spends his whole day
performing not-so-random acts of
kindness. Then he goes home to his
wife...
Thirkell wrote her own autobiography, of a
sort, about the houses she had lived in.
She was related to the painter Burne-Jones and vaguely to Kipling.
Speaking of which, Kipling's "Stalky and
Co." is a very happy book, despite being
set in an English boarding school that
churned out boys for the British Army and
Foreign Service ("I gloat! Hear me!").
Michael Dirda: Yes, she was the daughter of J.W. Mackail, a great classicist, and the mother of Colin McInnes--author of Absolute Beginners and other novels.
Falls Church, Va.:
I think "Eloise" (can't remember the author), the children's book about the girl who lives in the Plaza, is about as happy as they come.
Michael Dirda: Ludwig Bemelmans.
New York, N.Y.:
Speaking of Peanuts, I used to spend hours making myself happy reading those Fawcett Crest Peanuts anthologies. The new coffee table book about the art of Charles Schultz is a pretty happy read, too.
Michael Dirda: Yes. I loved Dennis the Menace cartoons when I was 8, and then Mad Magazine, then superhero comics. I don't suppose any reading has given me more pure joy than a night I spent sitting next to the heat register in the living room, sipping hot cocoa, and reading my way through some 40 comics given to me by a friend who was done with them.
Evanston, Ill.:
Some would argue (and did, last week) that happiness in literature comes from quality as much as tone. I have wonderful, and in a strange sense, happy memories of reading, say, Hardy's "Tess of the D'Ubervilles," McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," Mishima's "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea," and Fowler's "Sarah Canary," all books with endings ranging from the hearbreaking to the wistful. My miserable reading memories are from wasting my time reading happy, crappy, fluff.
Michael Dirda: Esthetic satisfaction is I suppose a form of happiness. I myself find a distinctive style can make me happy. For instance, I love the six volumes of The George Lyttelton/Rupert Hard-Davis letters--the correspondence between two very bookish Englishmen. It never fails to make me smile and, as they say, hug myself with pleasure. I recently wrote about a one volume abridgement for the Atlantic.
Washington, D.C.:
Was at the library recently and looked at the Wodehouse books, but wasn't sure where to start. I know you have favorites within the series, but does one need to read them in any certain order? thanks.
Michael Dirda: Not really. You might try an anthology like The Most of P.G. Wodehouse to start. Or the novel Leave it to Psmith.
Ankh-Morpork, Sto:
I don't know if it's exactly what you mean, but I'm usually rather happy when I'm sitting down and cracking open a new Pratchet book.
Michael Dirda: Yes, who isn't? Pratchett is the best humorous, and not only humorous, writer alive..
Middlemarch unfunny?:
You mentioned once that there's no humor in it, but perhaps you need to go back and look at the pithy descriptions of the characters and their natures: I laughed out loud many times. That aspect is like Jane Austen, though much less concise.
Michael Dirda: ok
Re: Eloise:
Kay Thompson was the author, not Ludwig Bemelmanns, who wrote the Madeline series. You really didn't have daughters, did you?
Michael Dirda: NOt a one. I did have three sisters,however. But are you sure Bemelmans didn't write a book about the Plaza? My mind really must be going.
New York Again:
Well then, if happiness is so fleeting, is that not a reason to value a happy book all the more? It captures the happiness and lets us enjoy it, as often as we want.
Some of the sad books out there, the ones where horrible things happen over and over, can also seem a little artificial, too much like job. After all, most of us experience both happiness and sadness mixed together in our lives, not unrelieved agony (or unrelieved joy).
Books are not meant to represent all facets of life all at once. by there nature they capture an emotion, a life, and event, something discrete. So why criticize a book if it captures a happy moment, as long as it does it well, even if that moment in real life is all too uncommon?
Michael Dirda: Ok. In my next incarnation, htough, I want to opt for that life of unrelieved joy.
Harrisburg, Pa.:
The "Anna Karenin" parody is from the first line of Nabokov's "Ada" -- certainly not a happy book, but an awfully funny one.
I'm only 200 or so pages into "Zeno's Conscience" right now, so I have no idea if it ends happily or not. Somehow, though, I have the feeling that nothing could really shake Zeno's ability to land on his feet. At least, I hope not.
Speaking of Svevo, Joyce's "Ulysses" ends with the word "Yes," which, considering the essential pessimism and negativity of his 20th Century peers ranks as a truly heroic effort in my book.
And though it's not a novel, Dylan's great new album "Love and Theft" is guaranteed to make you grin.
Michael Dirda: Actually, most of the great experimental novels tend to be, in a loose sense, comic. I think you need the humor to put up with the other demands on the reader. I'm thinking of Mulligan Stew, Gravity's Rainbow, Finnegans Wake, AT Swim Two Birds, Beckett's novels andplays, etc etc.
Chicago, Ill.:
Donald Westlake's "What's the Worst
That Could Happen?" is a happy, funny
book. The movie was dreadful, I'm told,
but at least that means there's lots of
cheap paperback tie-ins floating around.
I also like his "Help, I'm Being Held
Prisoner." Hilarious.
Calvin Trillin's food writing is very happy.
How can you be sad reading about a
chicken that can beat you at tic-tac-toe?
Or his proposing that we replace the
turkey at Thanksgiving with spaghetti
carbonara? Or his practice of always,
when traveling in Europe, referring to Mrs.
Trillin as "The Principessa?"
Michael Dirda: Yes, Westlake and Trillin--both very happy writers. Alas, I'm fairly sure the Principessa died this past year of cancer.
Venus:
Geez, Michael. You sound depressed again. "Those of us who slog daily through a slough of despond often yearn for any ray of sunshine. I wish I believed it was darkest before the dawn." Whew. OK, if you want a ray of sunshine, then how about "Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf" by Catherine Storr? Yes it's written for an audience of seven-year-old girls but that's why it's so funny. It's about a talking, walking wolf and his attempts to kidnap and devour a nice little girl named Polly. She outwits him every time. Aside from the sexual imagery, which I didn't get at age seven (thank heaven), it is a delightful, happy read.
Michael Dirda: Thanks.
Washington, D.C.:
Ahoy Great Dirda,
I think that the Road to Oxiana by the Great Robert Byron is my happiest book, and alongside that William Kotzwinkle's Insectoid homage to The Great Detective:
Trouble in Bugland. They never cease to fill me with two different kinds of joy, but joy nonetheless.
Have you looked into J.P. Kauffman's books yet and what do you think of J.R. Ackerley's writing?
Michael Dirda: Ackerley's Hindoo Holiday is a golden book for me--it does make me happy. Alice in Wonderland in gay India.
Parts of Oxiana are very funny--but it's not as funny as, say, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, by Eric Newby.
Haven't read the Kotzwinkle--though the opening section of The MIdnight Examiner is hilarious. I'm told The Bear Went Over the Mountain is even better.
Washington, D.C.:
Michael -- Thanks for the topic this week. I'm really into "happy" books right now, for various reasons. I just seem to need literary lightness and some comic relief. But I also want to read books that are well-written, and have some depth to them.
Anyway, one of my favorite happy books is Laurie Colwin's "Happy All the Time." Despite its smaltzy title, it's a well-written book that's just fun to read.
Jane Austen -- just about anything -- is another of my favorite choices. I also like the Lord Peter Wimsey books, for both good writing and "the bad guy loses" endings. (It's nice to be part of a world where there is a sense of justice prevailing. I guess that's the appeal of these old-fashioned mysteries, at least for me).
I also love the "Lucia" books, the Barsetshire trilogy by Angela Thirkell and, of course, P.G. Wodehouse. In fact, I just can't seem to stop reading Wodehouse these days!
Michael Dirda: thanks
Silver Spring, Md.:
Yes, the Principessa died (on Sept 11 in New York but a mile away from Ground Zero in a hospital)
There is a bio of Angela Thirkell available only from the Angela Thirkell society.
Her son is Colin MacInnes, for those who dynasticize.
Michael Dirda: thanks
Swim-two-birds:
I think the happiest book I have read is Nabokov's "The Gift," which is a disguised love song to his wife, Vera -- the last chapter in particular. His recollections of childhood in Speak Memory are right up there as well. Of course, the cloud of what is to come lies over the latter book.
Michael Dirda: Interesting choice--but from SWim-Two-birds, I would expect it.
New York, .N.Y:
To the person who doubted me about reading Middlemarch in two sittings: I really did spend two full days reading Middlemarch, only breaking for food, sleep, etc. I was a student, you see, and it was due on Monday. The problem with reading it so fast is, you don't retain it. I've forgotten what scene made me cry, but Michael's reference to the forgotten dead epitaph sounds like the kind of thing that gets me.
Michael Dirda: thanks
Lenexa, Kan.:
Mr. Dirda,
L'Allegro? I'm still savoring last week's great forum and the leads it provided -- spent a most enjoyable (if tearjerking) week reading "Where the Red Fern Grows," "The White Hotel," and "The Giving Tree." These forums are great. Don't ever leave us.
Michael Dirda: Well, you ARE retired. Well, I won't leave you just yet, but I've got a couple of book ideas in mind and may have to alter my writing routines a bit. But I'll keep everyone posted. Of course, we can take the PUbic Radioapproach--If you believe that Dirda on Books has an important place in your life, please e-mail the station with your pledge, or at least tell them how great the show is and that he should be paid twice as much money and give two hours a week.
Washington, D.C.:
Right now anything by David Lodge makes me laugh out loud. I just love his writing style (which I discovered thanks to this chat). This week I finished "Therapy: A Novel," and I'd say it qualifies as a "happy book" even though the main character starts out depressed. It is the process of learning to live in the present moment that ultimately makes him happy. The scenes where he tracks down his first sweetheart on a pilgrimage were quite beautiful and romantic.
Michael Dirda: Wait till you get to Changing Places and SMall World.
Washington, D.C.:
Christopher Fry's "The Lady's Not for Burning" is one of my favorite happy reads. The language is so playful, Richard and Alizon so sweetly naive, and Thomas and Jenny's love so sad but wise that it's become one of my favorite antidotes to February. Resigning yourself to a darker world for the sake of someone who comes no higher than your bottom lip... that perfect balance of optimism and bitterness. Nothing else of Fry's seems to come close.
Michael Dirda: thanks. I once heard a recording of this in 8th grade--but not looked at it since.
Bowie, Md.:
Michael,
I have a new book coming out soon. What do I need to do to get you to review it? Thanks!
Michael Dirda: Can you get my kids into Harvard or Princeton? Can you fill a carry-on bag with used twenties? Do you know the secret to eternal youth and/or cellular regeneration? Other than these, you can just ask your publisher to send us a review copy.
Alexandria, Va.:
One of my favorites, and a laugh out loud kind of story, was "Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories," by Jean Shepard. And really any of Shepard short stories are hysterical.
Michael Dirda: Yes, they are. I love that opening story in Hickey about the awful,hill billy neighbors.
E-Guy:
"Happiest" book? Okay, I give up. But whenever I need a quick laff, I can open "A Confederacy of Dunces" to any page, start (re)reading and I'll soon be chuckling. Still, there's a lot of sadness at it's core... maybe it's just the book that gets the "happiest" reaction (laughter) from me.
Michael Dirda: I agree--though now it reminds me of New Orleans, and that makes me yearn to be there and to recall my past visits.
Well, time's up for this week, people. Keep those cards and letters coming--and remember to send in your dollars direct to M. Dirda. . . Till next thursday at 2, keep reading! And as always I apologize to the many posters I never got to answer. My fingers can only type so fast.
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