Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, Nov. 7, 2002; 2 p.m. ET

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

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.

Columbia, Md.: Welcome back! You've been missed. Wondering if you've read anything good lately?

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! I'm back from a long hiatus, during which I worked on a book--about books and growing up. The early dawn of my checkered life as a reader, in other words. I'm gratified to see that there are questions, since I only announced my triumphant return to Carnegie Hall--oops, that's a different fantasy--to Live online two days ago. Anyway, for the next hour we'll talk about books, reading, publishing, the literary scene, Book World, what have you.

Thanks for the kind words. I have read a number of good books--and there'll be an entire essay about what a book critic reads when he can read for fun this Sunday. So please check out this coming Book World. Mostly, though, I read my own words--over and over and over.

Washington D.C.: Michael,

Good to have you back -- we've missed you! I love reading mystery novels, but prefer being able to solve the mystery along with the detective -- a real whodunit. I don't just want to have a surprise at the ending, I want to be able to pick up on little clues that the author drops along the way. Can you suggest any titles or authors that I would find most satisfying?

Michael Dirda: Sounds to me as if you should look to the Golden Age mystery writers of the 1930s. Ellery Queen's early mysteries used to have a Challenge to the Reader announcement three quarters of the way through the book, a box explaining that all the clues to solve the crime had been presented. You should also match wits with Agatha Christie, John Dickson Carr (aka Carter Dickson), and Rex Stout. But do we really read mysteries as puzzles that we try to solve ourselves? Isn't the pleasure in surprise, in being fooled and astonished?

Washington, D.C.: Mr. Dirda,

In your review of Milan Kundera's most recent work "Ignorance" two weeks ago you seemed to dismiss the book as "interesting talk and hot sex." I wonder if perhaps you missed the central aim of (all) Kundera's works, which is in his own words:

"To bring together the extreme gravity of the question and the extreme lightness of the form. ...The union of a frivolous form and a serious subject lays bare our dramas (those that occur in our beds as well as those we play out on the great stage of history) in all their terrible insignificance." ("Art of the Novel," '95)

It would seem to me that the lightness of form in "Ignorance" only mimics the lightness of form in our own lives and does not in any way take away from the book's philosophical "weight."

Michael Dirda: Hmm. I thought that I liked the book. The words you quote we're in summary, and I thought I'd made the talk sound pretty appealing. I like Kundera's work, but I still maintain that he's roughly comparable to Robertson Davies--fun to read, but not really that deep. In my book lightness and quickness are good things. After all, I'm a middle-brow book reviewer myself.

Necropolis, Md. (home of the newly wed and the nearly dead): What is your opinion of the IRS' new ruling that authors be required to file 1066 forms for each of their publishers and agents, instead of publishers and agents issuing the usual 1099s? This apparently has taken the publishing industry by surprise, and caused no end of angst among publishers, agents and writers. The last of these lack both the accounting expertise and the software to work out this new regulation. Both the Writers' Guild and AAR have filed protests, but to no avail. Since many writers, myself included, publish with several different companies and make chump change that won't pay the accountants' fees, this is pretty scary stuff. Your take?

Michael Dirda: Gee. This is all news to me and it does sound scary, even for someone not from Necropolis. I have absolutely no understanding of tax law. If anyone out there has more expert opinion, let us know.

Fairfax, Va.: Dear Michael,

Just so glad you are back. Your chat makes my day.

Michael Dirda: Gee, I hate to think of all those unmade days. But thank you for the kind words.

Springfield, Va.: Welcome back, Mr. Dirda: Can you give any opinion on the recent F. Scott Fitgzerald Literary conference in Rockville? I saw that you were somehow involved in that. If someone submits a story for the short story contest, should they expect to hear something(i.e. -- an opinion on the work) from the people involved?

So glad you are back. I have missed your chats!

Michael Dirda: I moderated a morning panel on biography with Edmund and Sylvia Morris and Meryle Secrest, then in the evening made the award presentation to John Updike. (And then, lucky me, had dinner with my new buddy John.)
I don't know how the short story contest works precisely, but I expect the rules would set out whether you would hear anything back--they have hundreds of entrants and I imagine they only write to the winner and runners-up. It's a fun conference though, and you should think about going next year.

Washington, D.C.: Hello Michael -- Welcome back!
Can you tell us anything about your experience as a writer over the past few months? Did you set up at home, surrounded by kids' clutter, chaos and noice? Or did you find a favorite spot at a library or coffee shop to write? How far did you get? Most importantly, was it fun? And, finally, when will your book be published?

Michael Dirda: I spent a month in Florida writing at the home of a friend and at the Atlantic Center for the Arts; then a week or two here in Washington; then a couple of weeks in Ohio, in my childhood home; and then back here in Washington. I'm an obsessive writer and would work from 8 to 12 hours a day, day after day, until I was too exhausted, and then I'd take a break for a weekend. The best and most productive part of the writing took place in Florida. I miss being there.
The book is basically finished, though I keep revising and polishing it. I'm feeling very insecure about it--like any new writer. But if my editor likes it, the book should come out sometime late next year.
Yes, it was fun. There's almost nothing I like more than writing. Is this sick or what?

Old Town, Alexandria, Va.: Just wanted to mention an amazing book I just read, "The Body Artist" by Don Delillo. Only 126 pages, which after "Underworld" is amazing! Sparse, beautiful look at that empty space that exists when someone we love dies. Fantastic. Have you read this one? Now, off to start the new Paul Auster book. Welcome back!

Michael Dirda: Thanks for the endorsement. I reviewed Underworld, but haven't read Body Artist. I admire DeLillo and Auster both.

Del Ray, Va.: Welcome back, Michael!

I'll be travelling in Germany this month, mostly around northern Bavaria (Nurnberg, Bamberg, Regensburg). I want to read books that relate to the area, but anything about WWII seems insensitive. At the libraray I found a lovely book of German poetry, with the German version on one page and the English translation opposite, so I'll bring that.
Can you suggest any other books appropriate to the occasion (fiction or nonfiction)?

Michael Dirda: Northern Bavaria--hmmm? Do you know Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts--it's part of a beautifully written memoir about an 18 year old Englishman's walk across Europe in the early 1930s. Gifts covers Germany, and is a wonderful evocation of the world that the Nazi's destroyed. Leigh-Fermor only wrote up his adventures 40 years after the event. Otherwise, you could try some obvious German writers like Mann or Kleist.

Herndon, Va.: Welcome Back!

Just finished listening to a books-on-tape version of Robert Heinlein's classic, "Stranger in a Strange Land." This was a new version that included a big chuck of text that Heinlein had been forced to cut out of the first version due to concerns about the book's length and its racy content.

I can see how this book could have raised quite a stir in 1961 when it first came out. He had some very controversial things to say about sex and religion, which I'm sure had quite an impact on impressionable younger readers.

While he grants women a lot of sexual freedom and intellectual ability, his overall attitude toward women was definitely of that time, the one consistently jarring note about the book. Overall, a very interesting read/listen.

Michael Dirda: Thanks for the comment. Personally, I think Stranger was a bloated lopsided book, and that the great Heinlein can be found in the early stories and juveniles. Try Double Star, Citizen of the Galaxy, and "The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag." Still, back in the '60s we had to read STranger. Grok.

Cambridge, Mass.: Great to have you back!

In trying to get a grasp on the current state of (American) poetry, who are the 20th century poets I should turn to? What are the works (and who are the poets) that brought us from Yeats/Eliot/Pound/Crane/Stevens/Frost to the likes of John Ashbery, Jorie Graham, Louisa Gluck, et al.?

Michael Dirda: Read Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Randall Jarrell, Richard Wilbur, James Merrill, Anthony Hecht, Gary Snyder, Sylvia Plath. If you look in one of those massive anthologies of contemporary verse, you should be able to find a sampling of all these.

Massachusetts: Hi Michael, and welcome back. I was getting nervous you had slipped through a dimensional tear and were gone forever.

Anyway, who can you recommend in the way of funny essayist? The more absurd and silly the better.

Michael Dirda: Funny essays? Well, you could go back to the master, Max Beerbohm, then go on to S.J. Perelman, James Thurber, and Flann O'Brien (The Best of Myles). David Remnick edited an anthology of New Yorker humor writers and that would be a good sourcebook. Alan Coren used to write hilarious essays when he was editor of Punch, and I think some of his work appeared in book form in this country. I remember one piece where he describes a photo-shoot of Margaux Hemingway in the style of Papa.

Washington, D.C.: Hi Michael, love the chats and your writing. Looking forward to whatever new books you put out.

Here's my question: I sometimes try to challenge myself as a reader with 'difficult' books, especially in philosophy. I've made strenuous efforts to read certain people like Hegel, Heidegger, and so on. I find them almost completely impenetrable. The parts of their writings which to 'seem' clear to me, don't seem very profound at all. Now, I consider myself an intelligent person and fairly well-read, so as a matter of pride, I find it incredibly frustrating that I don't see why these writers have attracted attention for -- in some cases -- centuries. Scholars of these heavyweights, in their work, often repeat a phrase like, "well, I can't possibly summarize X's thought in 100 pages, it's so dense and brilliant, but here goes anyway, let's touch on the big themes" and so on. What do they see that I can't? Are they just brilliant and I'm too dumb to ever get it? Are there writers like this for you? Thanks a lot.

Michael Dirda: My guess is that the world hasn't been trying to con you about the merits of Hegel, et al. But it may well be these philosophers demand more attention than you give them, or that they are more subtle than you realize. My sense in reading philosophy is that it is most accessible when you are pursuing answers to a question: What is beauty? How do we know anything? Matters like that. Maybe you should try more literary philosophers--Plato, Hume, Nietzsche come to mind.

Chantilly, Va.: Michael: Megadittos on the welcome back greetings. You have been missed.

Have you read Pat Conroy's new memoir? It's in my to-read pile. I find it amazing that one man's life can produce so much good writing. Of course, he had to live with these hellish people, but we are richer for it.

My current reading is the latest Robert Caro LBJ volume. Like the first two, it's great, but unlike the first two, it's full of Senate procedural minutiae and recaps of legislative battles long forgotten that may be a bit daunting for the non-poli sci readers among us.

Michael Dirda: Haven't read Pat Conroy. Caro is a terrific biographer, but I can see how a little DC politics could go a long way.

Round Hill, Va.: Question about the F.S.Fitzg. conference: why did they kick-off the day with the panel on biography? a friend attended and said it was a pretty dry beginning to what turned out to be a nice day.
you comments...

Michael Dirda: Dry! Dry! We were scintillating, funny, etc. Well, at least I thought we were, since I was the moderator of the panel. I'll admit that Meryle Secrest's talk, which was the first hour of the day, was hard to hear, but she did make good points. The panel really was good.I suspect that the programmers simply try to pick a theme or genre for each year's conference and this year it was biography.

Kingstowne, Va.: Michael, so glad to have you back! What do you think of British SF author JG Ballard? I just stumbled onto "Concrete Island," his 1974 novel about a guy who crashes his car on a freeway interchange and gets stranded there for longer than he thinks. After finishing the book, I don't know whether to be impressed or repulsed by the airless, preachy, taut and claustrophobic little book. While I am impressed with Ballard's allegorical story and his prose style, I found the book infuriating by the end, even though it's fewer than 200 pages. Have you read it? Your thoughts? Should I try for "High Rise" and "Crash"? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I'm a longtime fan of Ballard, but I actually prefer his simpler, less dmeanding earlier works and stories. Rather than go on to Crash--which is more gruesome than Concrete Island--I'd suggest his collected stories, his fictional memoir Empire of the Sun, or one of his early disaster novels: The Crystal World or The Drowned World. THey have a lush Conradian feel to them.

Charlotte, N.C.: Welcome back! Did you know people were even wondering aloud on Lloyd Grove's chat where you were? You were missed.

Settle a question for me? "The first book that fits the definition of a novel was..." I've heard answers that range from Tale of Genji to Robinson Crusoe. Help!

Michael Dirda: The first novel--depends on the definition. There are classical romances--Daphnis and Chloe, The Golden Ass--that might qualify as novels. I'm supposing that a novel needs to be in prose, or you might extend the possibilities to Homer or even Gilgamesh. The Tale of Genji is a good choice for the first modern novel--even if it is 12th century--roughly contemporary with Arthurian romances and Icelandic sagas, which also could be regarded as novels. Defoe wrote novels before Robinson Crusoe, but that book seemed to start a rage for prose fiction that continues to our day.

Anna Karenina: Welcome back! You were greatly missed!

Before you left, I believe you said you'd re-read Anna Karenina. Around that time, I had just started reading it (for the first time, I'm ashamed to say). I knew I'd like it but I had no idea it would be so wonderful.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are on Anna Karenina as a person. There were many things about her that I admired but I found that she wasn't completely loveable. In the end, I found her extremely flawed. But I was very surprised at how much I really like Levin and Kitty. These two seem to be a much more developed and less flawed couple and yet the book is entitled Anna Karenina. What are your thoughts on this?

Michael Dirda: Actually, I think Anna was shallow and stupid. Vronksy starts out this way, but his love actually deepens him and he never betrays the woman he comes to regard as his wife. Levin's holy-holy angst annoys me; Kitty is almost too admirable. My favorite character is her flighty, womanizing, spendthrift husband.
I admire the book a lot, but I in the battle between Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, I still belong in the former's camp.

re: Kundera: Lack of narrative weight is precisely Kundera's failing as a writer. He raises interesting questions, but his uncharitable treatment of his characters (by which I mean his tendancy to sneer at their humanity), and in his more recent books, his reluctance to create more than one dimensional stand-ins for the opinions of a crotchety old man, means that I walk away entertained, perhaps, but not enriched. Whereas other authors who strove for lightness (Sterne, Cervantes, and in Bohemia, Hasek and Hrabal) but who have a clear affection for their characters, leave me with much more of a sense of what is at stake.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. That's sort of what I meant--but much better expressed.

Richmond, Va.: Re: "Stranger in a Strange Land".
I read the expanded version when it came out 8 or 10 years ago, and I thought it was a great example proving why even good authors need editors. The longer version wandered around far too much and didn't add anything to the version as originally published.

Michael Dirda: THanks. I think that's the general opinion.

Annapolis, Md.: Welcome back!

I recently read several Walter Mosley books and am seeking other books in the same genre. I would appreciate recommendations. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Try James Sallis's series about a black detective in New Orleans--regarded by many as better than Moseley's. First is "A Long-Legged Fly."

Funny essayist: For the reader wanting funny essays, Woody Allen should be high on the list. On a related note, I found a copy of his Without Feather translated into French (as God and Me: Opus I). They made a few changes for French readers. E.g. (with my back translations):

"But she won't discuss Pound with me. Or Eliot"
T:"But it's not her style to discuss Joyce with me. Or Eliot."

"Suppose I wanted Noam Chomsky explained to me by two girls?"
T:"Oh, say, for example, I wanted Saint-John Perse explained to me by two girls."

"He was into Blake."
T:"He was interested in Schopehauer."

"I got caught reading Commentary in a parked car, and I was once stopped and frisked at Tanglewood."
T:"I was caught discussing Ceasar's Commentaries in a parked car; they took me out and frisked me."

"I can get you photographs of Dwight Macdonald reading."
T:"If you want, I could get you photos of Ezra Pound writing..."

"A blonde with a big smile winked at me, nodded toward a room upstairs, and said, "Wallace Stevens, eh?"
T:"A blonde winked at me with a big smile, pointed out a room upstairs and said, "Walt Whitman?"

Michael Dirda: How odd that they would do this. But yes, Allen is a super comic essayist; pity he gave up writing.

Funny Essays: A more modern choice would be David Foster Wallace -- his non-fiction stuff is fantastic. "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments" is absurd and hysterical. And no drug references, which I know you don't like about his novel.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. A friend of mine recommended it to me too. World enough and time.

Takoma Park, Md.: Just back from London, where I bought many used books and a few new ones. Good news:

Kate Atkinson (Behind the Scenes at the Museum) has a new book of short stories based in part on Ovid. No pub date in the US yet.

Jasper Fforde's sequel to The Eyre Affair is out there, and every bit as good as the first one. due here in about 15 months.

Geoff Ryman (253, Was, etc) has a new one out too.

Michael Dirda: Thanks for the update on three really interesting writers. But aren't books really expensive over there?

Washington, D.C.: Dear God, how I have missed you.

Michael Dirda: Heidi, I told you not to write me here.

Somewhere, USA: So glad you're back! Wherebouts in Florida were you? I can envision you in Key West or perhaps St. Augustine, stretched out in a hammock, sipping rum and coca-cola?

Michael Dirda: How about Orlando? Hanging out with Mick and Don. Some of those Mouseketeers are kind of cute too, and they're not all as young as you'd think.

Takoma Park, Md.: So glad you're back at last.

On a subject we once discussed, I can recommend Eva Brann's new book: "Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and the Iliad." She was the best of my professor's at St. John's in Annapolis. The book is a delight in itself (no dry classicism here), and offers real accessible insights into those two great works.

Michael Dirda: THanks. Sounds good to me too.

Funny Essays: Wszlawa Szymborska's collected reviews are actually funny essays in the form of book reviews. Just out, called something like Necessary Writing.

And Jeffrey Steingarten's Man who ate Everything is a group of genuinely funny food essays.

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

Takoma park, Md.: In the area of 20th century poetry, I just saw a terrific exhibit at London's Imperial War Museum (bad name, great museum) covering 12 poets of The Great War. Not just Sassoon and Owen and Brooke, but 9 more good ones.

Artifacts, manuscripts, photos, and an effective audio guide with many readings both from the poems and letters home.

All visitors in tears by the end. Amazing.

There are several easy to obtain anthologies of these poems.

Michael Dirda: THanks. Ah, the IMperial War Museum, right near West Square, home to my old friends the Bakers. Martyn, Rosie, Hi!
Nothing like World War I poetry to make a grown man weep.

Takoma park, Md.: Books are relatively expensive in England, but they put out more in trade PB first than we do here (both the Ryman and the Fforde). The Atkinson was on special discount from one of the big booksellers. And many are on 3 for 2 special offer at the big bookstores.

Used books are harder to find in London than before, but I scored some good Alice Thomas Ellis and Michael Frayn stuff. Also David Lodge's first two novels that are out of print here.

Michael Dirda: Congrats. In my day the best place for used books were the barrows on Farringdon Road, overseen by George Jeffrey, who had the last remaining license to sell books on the streets of London. Book runners would gather to grab his new stuff every Saturday morning. When he died all literary London mourned.

Fairfax, Va.: Hi Michael, welcome back.

Quick question: When does the holiday gift-giving edition of Book World come out?

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Second Sunday of december.

Kilkenny, Ireland: Nice to see you back.

"Conjunctions" has just brought a special issue on the New Fabulists, edited by Peter Straub, with short stories by Gene Wolfe, John Crowley, China Mieville, M.John Harrison and the wonderful Kelly Link among others. Has it crossed your radar screen by any chance?

Michael Dirda: Yes, it's a terrific issue--and most of the contributors I'm happy to say are friends of mine. I've just sent it out as part of a forthcoming sf and fantasy column.

Takoma Park, Md.: The new Pratchett, for example, was on sale for 14 pounds. Less than the full price here, esp with taxes. And it has a better cover than the one here. I'm kicking myself for passing on it.

But these are all special cases.

Michael Dirda: ABout to start reading Night Watch this weekend.

Dupont Circle, Washington, D.C.: Dear Michael,

I just saw the movie Iris and am interested in reading my first Iris Murdoch. What do you recommend as a good place to start? Welcome back!

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. For Iris in shorter form: A Severed Head. For full-fledged midcareer Iris, The Black Prince.

Arlington, Va.: So glad you're back.
I went to see a reading by Martin Amis, who was paired with James Fenton. Fenton read second which surprised me, until I heard him -- I adored his poetry; it was lyrical and spirited. Was curious if you're familar with his work, and your thoughts, especially if he might be dismissed by some as too simple?

Michael Dirda: I reviewed one of his books--Children of War, I think--and like his poetry a great deal. He's been writing a lot about art recently, often in the New York Review of Books, and those columns were collected a year or so back. Haven't seen much poetry of late.

Washington, D.C.: Are there any books that have been written in the last 10 years that you feel will make it to the canon?

Michael Dirda: Well, certainly one that will be published at the end of next year, if its editor likes it.
THis is an impossible quesiton unless one knows how big the canon is. Ie. William Carlos Williams is a great American poet, but he's not Dante or Shakespeare.

Washington, D.C.: Michael -- will holiday Book World have kids books?

Michael Dirda: NOv. 24 is a special kids isue.

Long Island, N.Y.: Dear Mike,

Welcome back! during your hiatus, what book(s) did you enjoy reading the most? Do you have a favorite CD by Glenn Gould?

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. I liked almost everything I read, from The Green ARcher to Lord Jim. See my column on Sunday. Oh, my favorite Gould is the Goldberg Variations, the second version, the slow one he made just before he died. I just bought a new CD of both versions, coupled with an interview with Gould done by my colleague here, music critic Tim Page.

Washington, D.C.: My book club is reading Pope Joan by Donna Wolcott Cross. I haven't picked it up yet but have been reading a non fiction accounting of Pope Joan, was she real or just a myth. Fascinating stuff. Rough outline of story is that she apparently served as Pope for two years in Dark Ages, disguised as a man. Catholic Church does not recognize this as factual, however (claims the story was invented by Protestants to discredit church during reformation).

Anyway, have you read Pope Joan nad have any thoughts? Or any other suggestions for further reading?

Thanks! Glad you are back!

Michael Dirda: Haven't read the novel, but the legend of Pope Joan is well known in medieval studies. You might enjoy an out of print, but wonderful little book, by Sabine Baring-Gould called Curious Myths of the Middle Ages--also includes The Seven Sleepers, the Wandering Jew, etc. Baring-Gould was one of these prolific Victorian clergyman/writers, with personal links to both George MacDonald and Lewis Carroll.

Troy, Mich.: The theme: nostalgia. What would you recommend? Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama? Famous, infamous, obscure?

Thank god you have returned.

Michael Dirda: Nostalgia--ah, my theme. Perhaps I should write a whole column on this subject. Almost any autobiographical book contains some element of nostalgia or wistfulness. Off hand, I'd turn to the early books of Wordsworth's The Prelude or the Immortality Ode; Swann's Way; Little, Big; Housman's A Shropshire Lad; Connolly's The Unquiet Grave. OH, but this is too big a subject and our time, for this week, is up. Check back next THursday at 2. Same Bat time, Same Bat station!

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