Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, April 3, 2003; 2 p.m. ET

Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda took your questions and comments Thursday, April 3 at 2 p.m. 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.

Raleigh, N.C.: What were you like as a 20-year-old? Err, at that time, what were your favorite books and what did you feel was important about books and what did you want to do with them? I imagine you were an English major.

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! Now what could such an online program possible be about? Yes, you're right, however you responded. For the next hour we'll discuss your deepest, most hidden secrets, as posters from all over the world bare all to the public gaze! No, wait. I mean we will carry on a high-minded, high-table kind of conversation about Literature, Humanistic Learning, and the throbbing, pulse-pounding. . . wait again. Something wrong here. Must be spring.
Anyway, let's turn to the questions. About books. Or possibly Book World, or publishing or reviewing or other aspects of the printed word.

What was I like as a 20 year old? Well, this is both easy and hard to say. The easy answer is to wait until October and read AN OPEN BOOK, the story of how I came to reading and what libraries did to me. It does, however, stop when I am 19, in Paris. But then it stops there because my personality was essentially formed by then, while I still had enough material for another volume should the clamoring hordes desire it.
But here's a short answer: Books were both pleasures in themselves, and escapes into a more exciting world. They were important because they gave me glimpses of ways of life other than those I knew (steelworker's family). They were also the motor by which I would raise myself out of the workingclass and find an interesting job. I was an English major, yes, albeit a reluctant one. I first tried to major in biology, then economics. As it was, I took the minumum number of courses and also studied a lot of French and history.

Germantown, Md.: I'm still recovering from my first read of Paul Bowles' "The Sheltering Sky." I was completely blown away. Are any of his other works "worthy follow-ups" to this or is the rest yet another reminder as to the limits of genius and the sadly finite talent of mere mortals?

Michael Dirda: Well, you should go on to his stories, arguably his greatest work. The first collection is called The Delicate Prey and Other Stories, but there was a collected stories a while back from Black Sparrow with an introduction by Gore Vidal, and I believe the LIbrary of America reprints the stories, as well as several novels and bits of memoir, in a Bowles volume. His most notorious story is "Pages from Cold Point," in which a homosexual son seduces his own father.

Tartan Noir, Va.: I've become a fan of Ian Rankin's Inspector Rebus detective novels. I've really come to enjoy the way he writes a cracking good story while also providing a distinctive sense of place and mood. I'd appreciate your thoughts on him and who you find to be the best novelist of detective fiction these days.

Michael Dirda: I've never read Rankin, though I know he's a god in Britain and our thriller reviewer Patrick Anderson praised his latest. I guess I need to find one of the early ones, or whichever is regarded as best, and give him a try. The best novelist of detective fiction today? Hmm. Donald Westlake doesn't really write detective stories, but he does work the crime genre as Richard Stark and under his own name (usually funny capers, but now always: See The Hook and The Ax). Ruth Rendell has pretty much focused her enormous talents on psychological suspense novels, rather than Wexford whodunits. Michael Connelly is supposed to be the hot guy now, but I"ve never read any of his books. Robert Parker and James Lee Burke are also highly regarded.
But now that I think of it, I guess I haven't read a contemporary whodunit since, oh, Tony Hillerman. I've read a lot of older writers, so maybe I need to get back into step. ANy recommendations for me and Tartan Noir out there?

Boston, Mass.: I have to say with Master Piece Theather's, Daniel Deronda, I am hooked on George Eliot. Other than the "Mill on the Floss," "Middlemarch," what else is there by dear George?

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Gee, you can just look up Eliot, George in your library's card catalogue. But there's SIlas Marner, Scenes of Clerical Life, Felix Holt and a couple of others. Middlemarch is the masterpiece.

Washington, D.C.: Gee I hope I'm the first person to question you about "Cosmopolis"!

I am zealous about DeLillo's canon, and I share the passionate enthusiasm you demonstrated in your review of "Underworld" for that book. I was a little taken aback by "The Body Artist," and I was wondering if you've had the opportunity to read "Cosmopolis" Reviews I've read have ranged from laudatory to dismissive. Michiko Kakutani blasted it. If you have read it, please weigh in. And if you haven't, please let us know what your your favorite books by him are and if we can expect a review in Book World anytime. Thanks, as always!

Michael Dirda: Haven't read Cosmopolis. Never believe critics. A reviewer's job is to describe a book, and to give his or her own responses to it, and to do so entertainingly. It's on our assigned shelf, but I don't know who is doing it--must have been taken care of on a day when I wasn't in.
Underworld is my favorite DeLillo, and White Noise is next.

Austin, Tex.: Thank you for your recommendation of The Princess of Cleves: I had never heard of this novel before and have found that it's persistently lingered in my consciousness since finishing it -- always the sign of a good book to me. I'm now on to another of your recs -- Madame Bovary (the French seem to write about temptation and adultery rather well, don't they?). Is there a particular translation that you recommend?

Michael Dirda: I read French so have never read Bovary in English, but the two most frequently cited translations are the Eleanor Aveling version, as revised by Paul de Man for the Norton Critical Edition (Aveling was Karl Marx's daughter); and Francis Steegmuller's. Steegmuller also wrote a fine book called Flaubert and Madame Bovary about the making of the masterpieces, and compiled a two volume edition of Gus's letters. These letters are the best book about writing ever written.

Pulse Pounding: I enjoy Ian Rankin's books. My favorite these days is Thomas Perry, especially his Jane Whitefield series. The downside? It makes me think that I could outwit contract killers. Hmmmm.

Michael Dirda: I liked early Perry--The Butcher's Boy and it's sequel (the title of which I should remember since I reviewed it). But these aren't really mysteries either. They're thrillers. Oh, we all think we could either be contract killers or outwit them, so don't worry.

Washington, D.C..: What tips can you offer about reading philosophy (e.g., stay away)?

Michael Dirda: By no means. But it's probably best to start with either very readable philosophers or a good guide book. This recommendation may be old fashioned, but I remember that Will Durant's Story of Philosophy was quite enthralling--highly biographical, but Durant writes clearly and well, and does present the gist of western philosophy. A more elevated intro, but with its own anti-religion prejudice, is BErtrand Russell's The History of Western Philosophy. And if you're rally ambitious, you can turn to the multi-volume work by xxxxx. The most readable and exciting philosophers are Plato, David Hume, and Nietzsche. Read around in these and you'll get a pretty good philosophical education. Then you can go back to Aristotle and Leibniz an d Kant and Wittgenstein.

Tartan Noir and You: While only one book, and not technically a detective novel, "Motherless Brooklyn" is a fabulous whodunit told in a unique voice.

Michael Dirda: Yes, but Lethem's first book, Gun With Occasional Music, is even more of a mystery a la Raymond Chandler, albeit a kind of fantasy/sf novel too.

Alexandria, Va.: I recently checked out of the Fairfax County Library a book on "the moral and ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant." A previous patron had written in the book in ink.

Can you understand the mentality of someone who would read a borrowed book on ethics and vandalize the book?

Michael Dirda: Sure. 1) Some people don't think of underlining as vandalism, and 2) he didn't understand what he or she was reading.

San Francisco, Calif.: Based on your enthusiastic recommendations, I picked up Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian" last week. However, I'm at a loss as to what you enjoyed so much about the book. Other than the occasionally entertaining Judge, how, in your opinion, did the book balance the unrelenting (and often gratuitous) violence?

Michael Dirda: Beautiful, gorgeous prose. And a profound vision of the darkness at the center of the human heart.
But, I will add: BM is one of those books that divides readers. No one feels indifferent to it: Either you regard it as a masterpiece or an overwritten gorefest.
I reiterate that I don't regard myself as a Critic--I'm a reader and writer, both a smaller and greater thing.

Alexandria, VA: Because I enjoyed his translation of Beowulf so much I recently read a few poems by Seamus Heaney.

They are probably wonderful, but I cannot observe in them any alliteration, meter or rhyme. If a literary work lacks all three of the above can it still be poetry?

Michael Dirda: Ever hear of free verse? I don't mean to sound snide, but the definition of poetry is very loose these days. In fact, Heaney's lines are carefully weighted and they are often wonderful poetry, though I confess to being less of a fan than most people. Plus, I liked his Beowulf translation a lot, but pointed out my reservations (based on having read it in Old English, back in my medievalist days).

Fairfax, Va.: I enjoyed your article about Wodehouse, and agree about his perfect sentences. I also liked it when he identified club members by their drinks (ex: "Did you hear about young Mulliner", asked a lemonade and angostura. "Why no", replied a sympathetic gin and tonic).
I wish someone would collect the perfect sentences of Saki. Unfortunately, I don't have my book here at work, but I can perhaps paraphrase a few: "Lady Isobel was said to sleep in a hammock and understand Yeats' poetry, but her family strenuously denied both stories"; and "She will have misery in her life, but it will go so well with the way she does her hair"

Michael Dirda: What a good idea! I love Saki too. I have nine out of 10 volumes of his complete works--lacking I think Beasts and Superbeasts--and think his Reginald and Clovis stories particularly fine. The Unbearable Bassington is very funny and Wildean, but it drags in places. I've often wanted to do an essay or a book on the Sardonic story--Saki, John Collier, Roald Dahl, et al.

Woodbridge, Va.: You didn't mention P.D. James -- my favorite detective writer.

Michael Dirda: Have never--he said embarrassed--read any of her Dalgliesh novels. WHich is the best?

Takoma Park, Md.: Back from two weeks of business trips where for some reason they would not let me drop everything on Thursday at 2 p.m. Oh well.

With regard to philosophy, if you're at all math/science/music inclined try Douglas Hofstadter's "Goedel Escher Bach." Or Hofstadter/Dennett's "The Mind's I" (sic).

There are also some really sweet old-fashioned books by Irwin Edman, a philosophy prof at Columbia, called "Philsopher's Holiday."

If it's ethics you want, Aristotle is still The King, and his "Nicomachean Ethics" is actually readable.

Michael Dirda: Gosh. I actually reviewed The Mind's I years ago. Ah, Irwin Edman--there's a blast from the past, right up there with Stringfellow Barr and Clifton Fadiman.

Takoma Park, Md.: Underlining is worse than vandalism; it steals the potential experience of a direct encounter with the book from all subsequent readers.

Authors should sue people who underline library books.

Michael Dirda: Well, I'm actually a believer in underlining--but it needs to be your book. Did you ever read an essay by Mortimer J. Adler called "How to Mark a Book?" In it he argues that a reader needs to be active, not passive, with important texts, and that the way to achieve this is by marking up the page with questions, comments, lists of major points, etc etc. I do think Adler is right--think of all those textbooks highlighted by undergrads--but he points out that you have made the book your own and that consequently no one else can, or will want, to read your copy.

Arlington, Va.: At the suggestion of my mother I recently read "Isle of Dogs" by Patricia Cornwell. I really thought it was badly written. Are all of her books on this level, or was this (as my mother suggests) a "departure" for her?

Michael Dirda: Opinion seems to be that the early Cornwell novels were pretty good, but that she has never been what you'd call a stylist and the later books need editing.

Takoma Park, Md.: Reading Irwin Edman made me want to be a philospher; reading Heidegger extinguished that wish forever. Not which of them to thank.

More to the point: Terry Pratchett has a new kids book coming out in a few months. The words "Harry Potter" are not in the title.

Michael Dirda: Yes, I was just thinking about that new kids book. Can't remember its title, though. Do you?

Marked-up Library Book: Or the owner marked it up, and then donated it to the library.

Michael Dirda: That's possible. But I don't think libraries take donated books into their collections: They sell them and then use the money to buy fresh, new books.

Detective Novels: I'll second P.D. James, though I haven't read all of hers. I've also read "A Place of Execution" by Val McDermid, a Scottish crime writer. It was brilliant, I thought, but I haven't yet had a chance to read more by her. It's a standalone, but she also has a couple of series.

Michael Dirda: THanks. Yes, I've heard that Val McDermid was good. As it happens, I've been thinking of going back to Michael Gilbert--I only read one--Smallbone Deceased-which was good but not great. But Guy Davenport tells me he thinks Gilbert a terrific comfort writer, up there with Simenon and Wodehouse. So I will try again. My favorite whodunit writers are Conan Doyle, Chesterton, John Dickson Carr, Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Chistie, Michael Innes, Edmund Crispin, Ellery Queen, Rex Stout, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Ross Macdonald. After Ross M detective fiction started getting too psychological, with conflicted detectives, and overly messy realism. I like wit and pure problem.

Takoma Park, Md.: Right, I should have made clear that underlining library books is verboten.

Individual option on underlining your own books. I prefer separate sheets of notes so I can both re-encounter the book later and then, if I want to, check out my own earlier thoughts on the note sheets.

Mostly I am embarassed by the opinions of my younger self. Perhaps I need a new younger self.

Now THERE's a premise for a thriller or a wistful sci-fi story.

Michael Dirda: Embarrassed by younger self? How true! To use a marginal phrase of some note. I once scribbled in a paperback of Lloyd C. Douglas's The Robe that it was the greatest book I'd ever read. I cringe when I remember that. But I tell the whole story in AN OPEN BOOK. And have I told you all to tell your friends that it's coming in October from Norton?

Upcoming Pratchett: It's called "The Wee Free Men," due in May sometime.

Michael Dirda: Isn't that the next regular Discworld novel? You're sure it's the kids one?

Swim-two-birds: On Bowles: Among the novels, two of the other three -- "Let It Come Down," and, especially, "The Spider's House" -- are worthy follow-ups. "Up Above the World" is not so hot, though readable. His memoir, "Without Stopping," is highly readable as well. You're right about the stories. Have you heard any of his music?

Michael Dirda: Never. I've read Ned Rorem's comments on it, but that's all. In truth, my favorite Bowles' novel is Two Serious Ladies. Of course, it's by his wife Jane Bowles--very witty and funny and camp.

Silver Spring, Md.: This is one of those cases in which American and European cultures clash. When you make your list of philosophers you don't mention Hegel and St Augustin. Don't you think that without them (with Aristoteles, Kant and Plato) the western culture is hard to decode?

Michael Dirda: Oh, I should have mentioned Augustine, who I rank very high. Certainly everyone should read the Confessions--"Give me chastity, but not yet" and "Tolle lege" and all that--and ON Christian Doctrine is important to understanding medieval texts. But I don't think many people read the City of God any more, let alone the book on the Trinity. Hegel on tragedy is quite exciting, but most of his writing demands a soul of iron, and probably a Prussian sensibility as well. Not that he's not important: THesis, antithesis, and synthesis, and the spirit of history and all that. But really who can read Hegel for fun?

Woodbridge, Va.: I especially liked "A Certain Justice," but I haven't read all her books yet, so this might not be the best.

She does like describing furniture a bit too much, but I just skip that... plot and characters and setting are all quite vivid.

Michael Dirda: thanks. Presume you mean P.D. James.

Washington, D.C.: Any opinions about At Swim Two Boys?

Michael Dirda: No, but I'm a great fan of At Swim-Two Birds, and all of Flann O'Brien for that matter.

Somewhere, USA: About detective novels. I have a real soft spot for Simenon's Maigret series. Even if they are dated and sometimes repetitive. In fact, I pretty much learned French by reading them. Is there anything in the same vein by more recent French authors? (Preferably with an accessible prose style.)

And not just detective novels but in general: What newer Spanish-language writers are you enjoying lately?

Michael Dirda: Nicholas Freeling's Van der Valk and Henri Castang novels are somewhat Simenon-like in flavor. I haven't read enough Simenon either, but when I do read one they are terrifically atmospheric. Real Simenon fans,however, seem to prefer his other novels even more.
Newish Spanish things? I guess the answer is nothing right now. I am about to read a new translation of The SIn of Fathre AMaro, by Eca de Queiroz, but that's from the Portuguese and doesn't count, I guess.

Michael Dirda: Ok, guys. We seem to have run out of questions for this week. Have your pens gleaned your teeming brains? It would appear so. Or perhaps my wit has started to pall. Non sum qualis eram sub regnae Cynarae, so to speak. Anyway, till next THursday at 2, keep reading!

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