Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; 2 p.m. EDT

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.

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books. For the next hour we'll discuss reading, writing and reviewing, publishing and perishing, scholars and rascals, what have you, so long as it related to books.
It's a sunny, pleasant day here in Washington DC, a bit chilly this morning. Your host is, as often, feeling a bit pensive and blue. I've just sold a book and should be elated, but somehow I'm not. Such moments make me think about the course of life, my tendency to vacillate and wait too long to make decisions, how paradise seems always to lie behind us. Lost Dawns. Of course, as Randall Jarrell once observed, people who lived in a Golden Age probably went around complaining about how yellow everything was.
Anyway, it's always fun to talk about books online, so let's get on with the show.

Washington, D.C.: I just wanted to say I really enjoy your chats and have learned so much and discovered -- and rediscovered -- so many authors.

I was wondering what you think about travel writing as a genre. I have read Mayle, Bryson, etc and really enjoyed one of those "Best of American..." series on travel writing.

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Travel writing is a wonderful genre, and one in which the British are the great masters. You might want to check out Paul Fussell's Abroad, a study of ENglish travel writing between the two world wars. Some of the great travel books are: Robert Byron's The Road to Oxiana, Peter Fleming's Brazilian Adventure, Freya Stark's The Valleys of the Assasins,Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands, Auden and MacNeice's Letters from Iceland, Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Bruce Chatwin's In Patagonia . . .

Spokane, Wash.: Have you read To the Wedding by John Berger? If so, what did you think of it?

Michael Dirda: Alas, no. I've only read a few essays by Berger and part of his ealry book on Picasso. I think I have a copy of his Booker award winner G. kicking around somehwere. He's highly regarded by many people I know. My colleague Lorraine Adams recently wrote very well about his collected essays.

EraserheadGuy, D.C.: Michael, I enjoyed your movie review last week. I hope you are enjoying your new (if temporary) freedom to do different things. Since you used to be a cineaste, what do you think of “Eraserhead?” Most of the Posties I’ve queried don’t care much for the film, although I think rather highly of it. And what are your favorite movies?

Michael Dirda: Never seen ERaserhead. You may remember the piece I wrote about thinking of applying for the film critic's job here--In it I mentioned that I hadn't then been to the movies in ten years. The truth is I know film pretty well up to about 1970 and very spottily thereafter.
My take on "The Mystic Masseur" was in fact the very first film review I've ever written. I did it because it wasn't a book review.

Vancouver Bound: Michael, if you hadn't paid much attention to Shakespeare since school, and you were now going to see a couple of plays (Cymbeline and Twelfth Night) how would you go about preparing yourself for an optimum experience?

Michael Dirda: I'd read Cymbeline and Twelfth Night, preferably in an edition that gives a separate volume to each play. That way you get a good introduction, useful annotation, and often a survey of the criticism.

Washington, D.C.: I am just finishing Paris to the Moon. I have really savored it. So, funny. More so really than anything else I have ever read. Adam Gopnik's sense of humor is right up my ally. Can you suggest another author in that vain I could try-out?

Michael Dirda: Besides me, you mean? Well, possiblities include David Sedaris, who lives in Paris; but I suspect you want humorists rather than Paris reporters. You might try, and they are very different but still funny: Joe Queenan, P.J. O'Rourke, or among older humorists such standbys as Thurber, Perelman, and Flann O'Brien. But I'm not entirely clear on what it is you particularly like in Gopnik.

Maryland, Md.: Are there any types of books you just won't read?

I'm thinking along the lines of romance novels, but then I remembered your review of Dazzle. Mysteries, westerns, pretentious celebrity memoirs?

Personally, my hardest and fastest rule is to avoid like the plague anything with Kathie Lee's name on it.

Michael Dirda: I'll try most anything, but for some reason I don't read many westerns or much that makes the best seller list. I wouldn't normally read Patterson, Clancy, Steel, those sorts of name brand authors. I usually imagine that they'll be clunky. Which is the one thing I can't bear. But I'll skim trashy Hollywood novels just for scenes of beauiful people induling in hot, kinky sex. But mainly I like books with strong, distinctive styles, ones in which the author has a voice like no one else's. I guess I'm kind of a biblio-epicure.

Travel Writing: I am, of late, a fan of Tony Horwitz' book, "In the Attic with the Confederate Dead," which is a travel book through the South, and a meditation, I suppose, on the way the Civil War still affects Southern culture.

His writing was so good that I immidiately picked up his first (?) book, "Baghdad without a Map" and though it's 10 years old, his travels, and comments, through the Middle East remain interesting and relevant.

Michael Dirda: Thanks for the lead. I know both these books are much admired.

Arlington, Va.:
Hi Michael, What do you think makes a book group successful?

Michael Dirda: I don't know. I've never belonged to a book group, being a lone reader by nature. STill, I imagine you need 1) people who actually read the book, 2) books that provoke argument, discussion, and speculation, 3) some mysterious chemistry that makes everyone feel that this is a good way to spend a couple of hours every month.

Bowie, Md.: Disagreement about Shakespeare:

Just go see them like any other plays. Treating seeing a play like you're studying for a final exam takes too much of the joy out of it.

Michael Dirda: I see your point, and partly agree. In a simlar vein, I've always told people to read poetry as if it were prose, i.e. not to make a big to-do over it being poetry.
But the questioner seemed to want to do SOMETHING before he or she actually got to the performance. And Shakespeare's language can be hard to follow if you're hearing it completely fresh.

Austn, Tex.: How about this: My husband used to love to read, but since law school, two young kids, a house and especially a garden, he has trouble making the time for books. I'm looking for something that he would love again. He likes Garcia Marquez, Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, Barry Unsworth. Any ideas? Thank you.

Michael Dirda: Clearly, he needs to quit his law practice and leave his family. Once out there on the open road, he'll have all the time he wants to read...
Seriously, I doubt he's read everything by his favorite writers. He could read more of them. But I suspect what your husband needs is quiet time, just like toddlers. Perhaps you could send him to the library for a few hours on the weekend? Or he could sit at Starbuck's and sip a latte while reading . . . anything. Once he's found a rhythm, all else will follow.

Washington, D.C.: Hello Michael -- Who bought your book? (Congratulations, by the way)

Michael Dirda: Can't say yet. But I hope EVeryone here and all your friends will buy it when it's published (which won't be for a year at least).

Venus: Hello Michael. Well done on closing your book deal. Perhaps you are not as elated as expected because you were secretly hoping the book deal would fall through so that you could chuck it all and embark on a wild adventure with a 32 year-old temptress. Or something.

Anyway, years ago I read and enjoyed “The Secret History” by Donna Tartt. Do you know whether she has plans to publish another book, or is she going to do a flit like Harper Lee and never write again?

Michael Dirda: You're not 32, are you? You certainly sound a temptress.
I've heard that Tarrt--interesting juxtaposition: temptress/Tartt--just thinking aloud here--anyway I've heard that she suffers from sever writer's block. ANd so I suppose that the SEcret History, sounding very autobiographical, could be a one-shot.

wiredog: You sold a book? Which one? Do used books get a decent price these days?

Michael Dirda: Funny.

Lenexa, Kans.: Mr. Dirda,

Trying to remember -- how much Graham Swift have you reviewed? Or read and not reviewed? I enjoyed both Waterland and Last Orders -- both films quite good although Waterland was less faithful (the flashbacks were in England but the present placed at a Pittsburg campus). How high do you place Swift in the current Brit-pantheon? Any personal interactions? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Never reviewed Graham Swift, nor have I read him, though a friend keeps after me about Waterland. Have I missed out? A lot?

Charlotte, N.C.: Given your description of your usual state of mind -- don't your family and friends worry about you? I know I do. Please tell me it's NOT from a lifetime of reading.

Michael Dirda: Yes, everyone worries about me. Melancholy runs in my genes--Russian blood, moody father. Reading as the cause? Well, Eccleisastes says that he who stores up knowledge stores up grief. I suspect the real cause is the disparity between the life I lead, no matter how blessed, and the life I'd like to lead and haven't been able to, for one reason or another. Books, of course, fuel some of those dreams. Indeed, one of the great themes of western literature is the way that fiction, especially romantic fiction, puts ideas into people's heads and makes them yearn for richer, fuller lives, often with disastrous results. See Don Quixote, Madame Bovary, The Great Gatsby.

Washington, D.C.: Michael -- Another suggestion re: Shakespeare. Although I'm pretty familiar with most of the plays, I always like to refresh my memory by at least reading the story. My favorite source is a children's book titled "Stories from Shakespeare" by Marchette Chute. (There's a similar book by Lamb that's also good, but I've had my Chute volume since childhood and am partial to it). I do this even if I'm also going to read the play before seeing it live, because knowing the story always helps me really better appreciate the language. Finally, either before or after I see a play, I love to dip into my book of essays on Shakespeare plays by Mark Van Doren, just to see what he's got to say. I don't always agree with him, but I enjoy his essays quite a bit.

Michael Dirda: VEry good advice. The Mark Van Doren book was the very first Shakespeare criticism I ever read--and like everything from Van Doren's pen is graceful and shrewd.

SciFiGirl: Re: Shakespeare. I find that when I know the play (i.e. Hamlet), I get a lot out of the performance because I know it so well. On the other hand, I also spot flaws, or where they've moved things around, or cut things out. These are all legimate things to have done to it, but I tend to notice it. On the other hand, if I don't know the play at all, I might miss subtle nuances (especially if the actors don't enunciate well), but the language always communicates itself to me. It all depends on whether or not you like being surprised by the action of the play. I can only remember the first time I saw Hamlet, before reading it, and being shocked by the ending. What audaciousness to kill EVERYONE in the play off by the last scene.

Michael Dirda: Toots Shor once complained at a performance of Hamlet that he seemed to be the only one in the audience who didn't know how it was going to turn out. I believe he also remarked how full of quotations it was.

San Francisco, Calif.: Hi Michael,

When your current project makes you even more famous, what will the Simpsons episode that revolves around you be about? Will you be performing your own voice or will Harry Shearer be doing his Dirda imitation?

Michael Dirda: Did you know I met Shearer in New Orleans? Neat guy. Oh, I'd want to do my own voice. The episode will be about how a journalist suddenly hits the best seller list, sells out to Hollywood, takes up with Claudia Schiffer and Heidi Klum (simulataneously--this is a fantasy, after all), wins the Nobel Prize for Literature and ends up a revered Master living on the Cote d'Azur in his booklined villa. There would be no comeuppance. In other words Freud was right: Honor, riches, power, fame and the love of women.

Washington, D.C.: Russian blood? I thought you were Slovak.

Michael Dirda: Russian on my dad's side, Slovak on my mom's.

RE: Shakespeare: I recommend the Folger Library editions of the plays. I am certain they put out an edition of Twelth Night, but less certain about Cymbeline. (Cymbeline had falled into obscurity until quite recently when scholars became interested in it for what it reveals about the notion of "England" and nationhood -- all that being said, it remains an extremely strange play.) The Folger is not only a local treasure, but their editions are clear and accesible yet contain introductions from some of the leading Shakespeareans in the world, including my mom!

Michael Dirda: Your mom? Cool. Cybmeline was Tennyson's favorite Shakespeare play and he asked to be buried with his copy.

Capitol Hill, Washington, D.C.: Hi Michael: While in the library last week I came across a book entitled: The Journals of Lewis and Clark edited by Bernard DeVoto. It's apparently an edited version for the non-scholar about the duo's exploration. Do you know of this book or know of others that would be good? I don't know much about L&C and would appreciate any book guidance that you could provide. It's interesting so far!

Michael Dirda: Bernard de Voto was a first-rate popular historian, especially of the Amerian west. You'd be in good hands reading anything by him.

The Ardent:
Michael,

Lest we forget, Walter Mitty?

I'm making a first read of Homer's Iliad, right around Agamemnon's despairing of losing, and Odysseus' midnight raid. Anyone for the battlefield? Which do you like better, the Iliad or the Odyssey?

Speaking of eros, any sources to inspire one who wishes in a letter to awaken a beloved to her (likely unknown) status?

Michael Dirda: Mitty? Ta pocketa, pocketa? "To hell with the cigarette.. He pushed his heels together and faced the firing squad, Walter MItty, the Undefeated, inscrutable to the last." Or something like that.
Odyssey.
Take Sir Philip Sidney's poetic advice: "Fool, said my Muse to me, look in thy heart and write."

Washington, D.C.: It's the Sinclair Lewis fan from last week...

Do you have a personal favorite among his books?

For a long time my favorite was Main Street, until I read Arrowsmith, which has now been bumped by Cass Timberlane. Elmer Gantry and Babbitt were good, but not top-three.

Michael Dirda: It Can't Happen Here.

Venus: I respectfully disagree with Bowie regarding the necessity to read a Shakespearean play before watching a performance. There are two good reasons to do this.

One, the plots and language are so rich that having at least a partial knowledge of them helps one appreciate them all the more live on stage. I always find that the more familiar I am with a play, the more I enjoy its performance; and for me, the best way to familiarize myself with a play is to read it thoroughly.

Two, unless one has deep knowledge of the Elizabethan/Jacobean vernacular, reading up beforehand simply helps one to keep up with the dialog and banter a bit more easily. Some of those off-color jokes are pretty good, but not if you have no clue they're there... I'm thinking in particular about the scene in Twelfth Night when Malvolio is reading the fake letter from Olivia. Tee-hee.

Michael Dirda: Yes.

Crystal City, Va.:

Hi Michael,

I'm in the middle of Jules Verne's 20000 Leagues and am absolutely delighted. Having surfed the web for info on the author, I've come to understand that he has a huge, vibrant contemporary critical following. Do you have anything to say about Verne & his works? . A l'aventure!

Michael Dirda: He's a wonderful writer. You might look for my afterword to the Signet edition of Jounrey to the Center of the Earth. Pardon the ungrammatical first sentence--not myh fault-and a couple of other typos.
Also some university presses have been issuing new unabridged translations of the major and minor works, usually with good introductions and annotations. His masterpiece is The Mysterious Island.

Washington, D.C.: Know of any books in which someone trekked around and went to amusement parks around the world (or the U.S.)?

I keep looking in the travel writing sections and come up empty handed.

Michael Dirda: No. Tell your agent to get on the horn.

California: Who do you consider to be the master of short form poetry?

Michael Dirda: How short? There is an Oxford anthology of short poems, edited by Michie and xxx. No poem of over 12 lines, or something like that, so as to exclude sonnets. If I had to pick one master of short lyric it would be EMily Dickinson.

New York City: That's interesting that Tennyson wanted to have Cymbeline within his grade. What would it say about one if the two Shakespeare plays one wanted to take into the unknown (the afterlife?) were Measure for Measure and The Tempest? Maybe "Tithonus" too.

I'm not sure if you've ever mentioned that you are a fan of Dorothy Sayers' fiction, but if you are (especially of Gaudy Night) perhaps you can recommend a writer with similar humor and intelligence for an uninspired reader who can't quite find the right novel.

Michael Dirda: GAudy Night is my favorite Sayers and one of my favorite modern novels--a wonderful portrait of academic life and "women's" issues.
Hmmm. You might try the mysteries of Sarah Caudwell--witty, professional people (barristers et al), and there are only four, as Caudwell died young.
Also Edmund Crispin--try The Moving Toyshop. And his master Michael Innes--start with Hamlet, Revenge, then Lament for a Maker, then the very funny Appleby's End.

Lenexa, Kans.: Swift, a former teacher, is didactic and existentially obsessed--brings a low-edged melancholy (often using death subjects). "Last Orders" is both for last call at the bar and the wishes of their drinking regular (his "cremains" in an urn at his old barseat) to have his ashes strewn. The novel is mostly flashbacks (love affairs, WWII North Africa) as they drive--getting drunk and in a fight--on the way to the designated pier. My kind of stuff.

Michael Dirda: Does sound suitably crepuscular in spirit.

Laurel, Md.: It's Triple Crown time, and a man's (and many women's) fancy turns to horses.

Have you read Andrew Beyer's books? They're all classics in the field for their content, but I'm always impressed by their literary merit. I honestly think they might be among the best books ever written in the "not necessarily meant to be read sequentially" genre (e.g. how-to books, scientific texts, collections of anecotes).

Michael Dirda: Never read them, but I know Andy went to Harvard, so I"m not surprised he can write well. With my Cossack genes I should have a greater appreciation of horseflesh than I do. My grandfather supposedly spent more money on his horse than his family.

Somewhere at work: Michael -- I enjoy your chats very much. Do you ever listen to books on tape? I always keep one in my car. I often listen to old favorites, but recently I heard "The Red Tent" (one of your probably unread best sellers) and enjoyed so much hearing it - probably much more than if I'd read it. Somehow the voice of the reader brought it truly alive and made it into her own story. Comments? Thank you.

Michael Dirda: Audio books are terrific. My favorite recent ones are Jeremy Irons doing Lolita and the Naxos versions of Gibbon and Proust.

Arlington, Va.: Hi Michael:

I am a compulsive reader who never misses your chat. I am always looking for good books to read (both fiction and non-fiction). I like to read "under the radar" titles. Can you (and other participants) recommend an author or titles that may be unknown but are among the best books you've read in a long time? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Many possiblities here: James Salter's Light Years, John Crowley's Little, Big, Penelope Fitzgerald's The Blue Flower, many others.

Princeton, N.J.: I am sorry to read that Walter Lord died on Sunday. "A Night to Remember" was the only book I ordered from Scholastic Press; I was 12, and bought the 69-cent paperback. I was mesmerized. I read it so often and with such intensity that I memorized whole swathes of text. I can still "recite" from it. I joined the Titanic Historical Society when I was 13, then got my indulgent parents to drive me to a Titanic survivors convention in Philadelphia. I met Walter Lord there and got his autograph (ME: "I've read your book 16 times." WL: "Really? Does it always end the same way?" ME: "Yes, it always sinks." WL: "Why ever do you put up with it?"). He was very polite and kind.

Michael Dirda: Lovely story. My colleague Ken Ringle wrote an equally lovely tribute to Lord today in the paper. You might look for it.

Takoma Park, Md.: No, don't read Shakespeare before you go. That way scholars can find you and ask all those questions like "Is it obvious to Hamlet that Polonius is behind the arras"? that they need an intelligent but shakespear-aware informant on.

Michael Dirda: Personally, I always thought that Hamlet was simply acting in his capacity as the castle pest and rodent exterminator. Doesn't he shout out "A rat! a rat!" Just a case of poor eyesight, coupled with his being overweight (recall how Gertrude describes him as fat).

Washington, D.C.: I buy a lot of books on-line (cheap) and often the descriptions will say "reprint from the original" or this review refers to the hardback edition. Other than collecting purposes, and besides the relative age of the book, is there any significance to this info? It's not like the content is any different, is it? Thanks. Your weekly online chat usually gives me at least a dozen book leads to track or buy, many more than I can keep up with reading. Bless you.

Michael Dirda: Blessings gratfully, even pathetically accepted. As I don't read books online I can't really say for sure, but I"m pretty sure you're getting the complete text.
Well, that's it for another hour of Dirda on Books. So now I return to drag myself through another week, a mere wraith, palely loitering, quietly sighing, yearning desperately for something out of life that while it is expected has already passed, together with the youth, with the strength, with the romance of illusions.
So, till next Wednesday at 2--keep reading!

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