Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, April 10, 2003; 2 p.m. ET

Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda took your questions and comments Thursday, April 10 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.

Bonjour from Paris: Hi Michael,

I'm in Paris for work for three months, and find myself often wishing you were here to show me around! Oh well, any favorite literary/artistic spots here? Any simple French novels I try to get my feet wet with reading in French?

Merci beaucoup, and I'll drink some vin rouge for you tonight.

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books. Etc. etc. etc. The sun is shining here in Washington, finally, after a miserably dreary week of cold, clammy weather mixed with rain. The whole world looked gray for days and days. But now it's a new dawn--or at least afternoon--and after this chat I'm going to take a walk. Don't tell my colleagues at Book World.
But in the meantime, on with the questions!

April in Paris! I have not led the right life. However, I did have dinner with the French ambassador last Friday, and felt utterly abashed at how much my spoken French had deteriorated. But the other guests assured me that even if my sentences were lacking a certain je ne sais quoi, my accent was quite perfect.
Favorite spots? Well, besides the obvious museums and such, I would definitely stop and have a coffee or peche melba at the Cafe Georges Cinq on the Champs Elysee, then pretend to want to reserve a private roomlet at La Perouse (this is where Swann used to take Odette and randy King Edward his mistresses. I"d also buy some school notebooks at Joseph Gibert in the Latin Quarter, and each sandwich de pate or steak-frites and drink a panache (beer and lemonade) and. . . Sigh. My heart is breaking.
Simple French novel: You can't go wrong with Camus's L'etranger.
Have fun!

Washington, D.C.: Dear Michael,

Learning Spanish has piqued my interest in Latin America, especially Mexico. Can you recommend any good novels or creative nonfiction books (translated into English) about Mexico? The type of book that would be hard to put down.

Michael Dirda: The key Mexican novel, at least for the magic realists that came later (e.g. Garcia Marquez), is Juan Rulfo's Pedro Paramo. It's very short, but powerful and disorienting.
Alan Riding wrote a good book about Mexico some 15 years ago when he was the New York Times correspondent there. I'm pretty sure it was called Distant Neighbors.
My memoir, An Open Book, has a chapter about my trip to Mexico when I was 17--it was one of the great adventures of my youth and I've often wished to go back. A friend once invited me to Cancun but I couldn't go for various reasons--though I don't think Cancun is Mexico by any means.

Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: Mailer has likened writing a novel (perhaps an "Ancient Evenings" or "Harlot's Ghost") to a marriage, a short story more like an affair, and a poem to a "one-night stand" (although admitting some "one-night stands" can be life changing). You've recently experienced authoring a memoir. Care to extend Mailer's trope? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Extend Mailer's trope? Hmmmmm. I suppose that my expereince would suggest a serious, long-term love affair--and now that I've turned the book in, I want it back, to play with some more. Whether the book has been life-changing is a little up the air--it's certainly made me want to write other books, though. But I don't like to work on anything for a long time--the fault of weekly deadlines, I guess--so I'd need to find another project that I could start and finish in less than a year. I have one or two ideas.
But I do have another book in the pipeline. Norton had also contracted for a fat collection of my journalism, and I need to compile that during the next month or so.

Washington, D.C.: I read your review of Stephen Jay Gould's posthumous book in Sunday's Post with interest. My own view is that your criticism of the book -- self-important, etc. -- also applies to his most recent prior books. His antagonism to E.O. Wilson, goes a long way back. As I remember it, one of Gould's early books described in some detail how Gould and friends disrupted "learned" meetings at which a book of Wilson's was under discussion.

Michael Dirda: I knew that Gould had his critics in the past, but I wanted to be kind and attribute some of my criticism to the fact that the book wasn't fully polished because of his last illness. Gould does recount the disruption of a conference--WIlson had a glass of water poured on his head--but disassociates himself from the attack. He does in fact blame himself for not acting faster to prevent the water being poured.

Fairbanks, Alaska: Are there any other books similar to READINGS, that collect good book reviews and essays? Thanks

Michael Dirda: Not yet there aren't. But soon there'll be my memoir, AN OPEN BOOK, and after that, another collection.
In truth there are lots of engaging genial literary essayists, and I mention those I admire in the preface to Readings. Look for Clifton Fadiman's various essay collections--relatively common in used book stores--or the compilations of Cyril Connolly, Edmund Wilson, Randall Jarrell, Kenneth Tynan, Brigid Brophy, Elizabeth Hardwick and many others.

Front Royal, Va.: I'd like to thank you for recommending Ursula LeGuin's "Left Hand of Darkness" a few weeks ago. Fascinating ideas about life on a hermaphrodite planet, plus creativity beyond what I read in alot of modern science fiction. Any more suggested readings by this author?

(And by the way on the topic of donating books to libraries, little libraries in less wealthy counties often can't afford to purchase new books on their own, in fact our local library here is full of what appears to be collections donated or willed by individuals. So there's always a place for your old books!)

Michael Dirda: Yes, donating books to libraries is always a good idea--though many do sell donations to raise cash.
Le Guin's a fine writer in general, but I would recommend her Earthsea books, especially the first three, starting with A Wizard of Earthsea; her other sf classic, The Dispossessed, her essays on science fiction (forget the title), and some of her short stories, the most famous of which is probably "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas." THe main early collection is The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

39 Palms, Calif.: Did you know Michael Kelly? I admired his work and am now reading his book Martyrs' Day about the last Gulf war. Wish he could have written one about the current one.

If you knew him, I wonder if you could share any observations/memories?

Michael Dirda: I didn't know him personally--he didn't work at the Post proper--but it was certainly a shock to learn of his death. His mother, Marguerite Kelly, writes The FAmily Almanac feature for the paper.

Venus: Michael, I always thought S Jay Gould was a bit of a windbag so wasn't too dismayed to see your almost-panning review of his posthumous book. I'm curious -- did you find yourself being nice because he's no longer living? Or was it more a case of cutting him slack because he wasn't around to refine the final final draft?

Michael Dirda: I cut him a little slack, because his publishers noted that he didn't have a chance to do a final edit of the book. If I'd wanted to be any more critical--and I was tempted--I would have needed to do a lot more reading in his earlier oeuvre. I don't do negative reviews too often, but I recognize their fatal attraction--and try to resist it.

Pentagon, Arlington, Va.: Two weeks ago you commented that if you need a bookmark, you aren't paying enough attention to your reading. I have to disagree. I don't want to waste any time searching for my place when I could be reading. Actually, I don't want to waste any time remembering where I am in the book. Precious moments better spent reading it.

Michael Dirda: When I don't use a book mark,it's never taken me more than a few seconds to find my place. Of course, I usually stop reading at the end of chapters or sections.
I suppose one reason I'm wary of book marks is because people sometimes leave them in the book and after a few years they stain the pages. Whatever you do, never let a piece of newsprint near a book you value.

Re: Le Guin short stories: "Till Human Voices Wake Us" is a beautiful story about love and art and totalitarian governments in times of drastic change. It's not exactly heartening, but it's extremely well written.

Mr. Dirda, have you read John Crowley's "The Translator"? I was stunned and would love to hear your opinion.

Michael Dirda: I've read most of Crowley's fantasy, but haven't read The Translator. Little, Big is the best fantasy novel since the trilogies of Tolkien and Peake--though it's quite different from both. Crowley possesses this wonderful lyric voice, and is able to tightrope perfectly between the sublime and the sentimental.

New York City, N.Y.: Michael

A friend gave me John Dickson Carr's "Fire, Burn" which is an historical mystery. I believe he's best known for locked room mysteries. Do you recommend opting for them as the best of Carr, or is it irrelevant.

Also, last week no mention of Ngaio Marsh among mystery writers -- your thoughts on her work.

Thanks

Michael Dirda: Carr's best locked room mysteries are The Three Coffins, The Crooked Hinge and The Judas Window. His best historical mystery is probably The Devil in Velvet (though none of his work in this genre is all that satisfying). His best historical book is his reconstruction of The Murder of Sir Edmund Godfrey--a wonderful book, in which he analyzes an unsolved mystery of the 17th century with the cleverness of an author of locked room mysteries. Last, many feel that his finest book is The Burning Court--which combines elements from all these genres and then adds a twist.

Simple French Novels: Les Jeux Sont Faits by Sartre. It's an existential love story. I read it in high school French, and this is a good reminder to see if I can get more out of it as an adult -- the French didn't baffle me but the existentialism did.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. I don't remember ever having read this--are you sure it's not one of his plays?

Baltimore, Md.: What would be the prose equivalents of John Ford's epic westerns? (aside from Lonesome Dove). The American West seems to have inspired a lot of great movies and a lot of bad books.

Michael Dirda: Well, you could read Alan Le May's novel, The Searchers--it's as good as the movie. Also, Walter Van Tilburg Clark's The Ox-Bow Incident, Thomas Berger's Little Big Man, Evan Connell's biography of Custer, Son of the Morning Star. I'm told that Ron Hansen's Desperadoes is good too.
Oh, and I haven't read Zane Grey in years--maybe he holds up? if only in a slightly kitschy way like the Tarzan novels.

Midlothian, Va.: I've recently been reading Harold Bloom's "GENIUS," which led me to read Isaac Babel's collected works. Any thoughts on Bloom and Babel ( a little a alliteration there).

Michael Dirda: I reviewed Babel's collected stories in the most recent translation, and have written the introduction to the paperback edition of the Red Cavalry stories (just out from Norton). Those stories of the Cossacks remind me of spaghetti westerns.
Bloom is a wonderful lightning rod and thinker. I admire him immensely, but do think he writes too fast sometimes. The Western Canon is probably his best popular book, but in some ways his best practical criticism is devoted to the romantics: The Visionary Company and various collections of essays.

Woodbridge, Va.: If you know any old ladies who used to sew, and you use book marks, ask them if they have any left over seam binding. It makes wonderful book marks--flat, narrow enough so that it doesn't overlap the center margin--and when you get tired of reading you can use it to tease your cat.

Michael Dirda: My cat doesn't take teasing. She is a Kipling cat who walks by herself and merely deigns to honor our household by her presence when it suits her--usually just to dine and nap on my youngest son's bed.
thanks for the advice. You're not Heloise, are you?

Cedar Hill, Tex.: I am preparing to take a graduate-level humanities course on the 20th century European novel (an existentialist slant -- Satre, Camus, Mann...) What do you think is the strongest literary work coming from this group and why?

Michael Dirda: An existential slant? Hmmmmm. Of those three I'd probably pick Camus's The Fall (though I love Mann's late novel, Felix Krull, Confidence Man--it's funny). If I wanted a European existential--and I"m a little fuzzy on just what you mean by that--I'd probably opt for Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno or Andre Gide's Les Caves du Vatican (Lafcadio's Adventures).

Emerald City: Why, after so long, with the books? Why did you elect not to write previously, or did you? Thanks and good luck -- best on-line chat extant!

Michael Dirda: Oh, I wrote half a novel once--decided it wasn't any good. Also wrote a dozen stories--and decided they were terrific pastiches of better writers. So they repose, somewhere, in a box. I've developed this personal voice in essays and reviews, and so it was an easy jump to a memoir--really a very long REadings essay. The real question is whether I can write anything else. WE'll see.
Also, I worry about reviewing--I'm getting older, have less and less interest in young new writers, wonder if I've gleaned my teeming brain etc. etc. What I really should do now is be given a tenured chair at a university, so that I can impart my, ahem, wisdom to the ungrateful young.

re: Mexican book: I think Distant Neighbors is a good introduction to Mexico, although it's getting a little dated. I wish Riding would consider a new edition. (Or maybe he has, and I just don't know it.)

Pedro Páramo, at least for me, even though it's short, is almost overwhelming. I like Rulfo's short story collection, The Burning Plain.

Your questioner might also consider The Death of Artemio Cruz, by Carlos Fuentes, as another novel. Or Where the Air is Clear. They're long, but more accessible than some of his other works. At least for me.

Michael Dirda: Thanks for the reinforcement. Fuentes is the other obvious person to read, but I only know some of his essays.

Omaha, Neb.: One of my favorite writers is Anthony Burgess, who complained about critics being suspicious of prolific authors such as himself. Do you find that this is so? Is there a critical reaction against writers like Oates and Updike who have produced a lot? Is this justified?
Thanks

Michael Dirda: Yes, Oates in particular writes so much that she's become almost a joke in book reviewing circles. And yet she is good, and sometimes terrific, no matter what genre she works in.
Much the same is true of Updike, though less so now. We're just grateful the master is still around.
Burgess was highly uneven--wonderful early books (Enderby, Nothing LIke the Sun, Clockwork Orange), interesting middle books (M/F and Earthly Powers), and a fair amoung of hack work (THe eNd of the World News). But Burgess was a first rate reviewer and a very enjoyable critic of Joyce (see Re: Joyce). His autobiographies are also wonderfully rumbustious. However, I"ve read that a very destructive biography of him has come out in England.
And as for justified--well, Stephen King has probaly written too much, but he can still surprise us, so I don't know. I'll take all the Trollope I can get.

Washington, D.C.: I'm reading "The World According to Garp" after loving "Cider House Rules". I know John Irving's publication history is fairly limited, so can you recommend a book or author along the same style to try next?

Michael Dirda: Read Irving's model and ideal: Robertson Davies. Start with Fifth Business.

Silver Spring, Md.: Escape or engagement? Novel concerning romantic love that offers both?

Michael Dirda: Is this a suggested book topic for me? My upcoming book will get me into enough trouble. Still.....

Upstate New York: For the reader looking for books about Mexico Octavio Paz's Labyrinth of Solitude is a classic, beautiful work of essays dealing with Mexico's past and future.

Michael Dirda: thanks. Forgot about the Paz book.

Palookaville: To the questioner looking for books about Mexico, why not just bite the bullet and read Under the Volcano?

Michael Dirda: ANother good suggestion. Ne se puede vivir sin amar, as the Consul is told again and again.

Clueless, oft times: Blood Meridian has been bandied about some lately and I thought it was stupendous! So, while I may have a heart full of soul, I've got a head full of wide open spaces and I hate when the following happens. After the indians finish off much of the gang, why was "The Judge" trying to kill the boy and the ex-priest? Did I miss something? Happens frequently to me with movies. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Oh, yes, I should have mentioned Cormac McCarthy for the seeker of western fiction, especially BM and All the Pretty Horses.
Ah, but who is the Judge? And why is he so indestructible? The Judge's nature lies at the heart of the book, and I see him as a kind of God of War. (Siva? Kali? One of those Indian dudes.) I love that his rifle is inscribed Et in Arcadia Ego--I too am in Arcadia, generally thought to refer to Death.

Washington, D.C.: What do you think of Martin Amis? I recently read his memoir, "Experience," and am now dying to read his novels. There were parts, I admit, when I thought it would never end, and others I really relished. Clearly he's whipsmart.

Michael Dirda: Or perhaps just deserves a good whipping for being such a smart aleck. I think he's amazingly talented with language, and I love the essays collected in The War AGainst Cliche. HIs novels and stories are good, but usually don't quite work, for one reason or another. The best is probably Money.

Woodbridge, Va.: A few years ago you went on a fitness program and wrote about it in book world, if I remember correctly. Have you continued in this program? How did you tear yourself away from your books in order to do something so boring as exercise?

Michael Dirda: I stopped exercising while I wrote An Open Book, but am now back on the circuit, have been for four or five months. It is boring in some ways--and yet. Look for my upcoming review of Gina Kolata's Ultimate Fitness.
Also, at my back I always hear Time's winged chariot drawing near--and I hope running and weight lifting will steer him another direction for a while. Also, myh clothes don't fit if I get fat.

New York, N.Y.: Mr. Dirda --

Good afternoon. As a writer, when do you feel, if ever, that a work is complete? Is there a point during your writing when you say to yourself, "That's it. This is done," and know there is nothing left to edit?

All the best.

Michael Dirda: Yes and no. I'm basically of the Paul Valery school of writing: A poem is never finished, it is only abandoned.
But as a journalist I know that my work is complete when the deadline arrives--I never look at my stuff again once it's in the paper (except when I've had to collect it).
More practically, since I write by slow accretion--one sentence after another--and read through the piece dozens of times, I know it's done when I can read it through and not tinker with any sentences.

Re: John Irving: If you love John Irving, you have not yet read one of his finest books -- A Prayer for Owen Meany. I still can't decide if the ending stands up to the rest of the book, but Owen himself is one of the best characters in American literature.

And Robertson Davies is even better.

Michael Dirda: thanks

Washington, D.C.: Michael, you mentioned last week that a book of letters from Flaubert was the best book about writing you know. I'm thinking you might not like the genre (books ABOUT writing, that is), but are there others that you would suggest?

Michael Dirda: Oh, I've read lots of books about writing. I recommend the following: Stephen Koch's recent book on how to write a novel, Dorothy Brandes old Writing a Novel, the various works of Jack Woodford about producing commercial fiction, and the various Writers at Work interviews from the Paris Review.

Providence, R.I.: Aaaaagh, L'Etranger! This book dogged me throughout my eight years of French education -- I ended up being assigned to read it three times in all. I recommend Manon Lescaut or Les liaisons dangereuses, both of which I found considerably more entertaining. Also it's fun to read young adult French books to brush up on your language skills.

Michael Dirda: Ok. but maybe she (0r he) hasn't read it. THose others are a bit harder. Les Liaisons dangereuses is the most chilling novel I"ve ever read.

old readers' home: "I'm getting older, have less and less interest in young new writers...."

I'm feeling this way too. I just don't read as much as I used to, and when I do I'm more interested in, say, long, old Trollope-like novels that aren't too demanding and allow me to lose myself in them. Or I re-read something I've read years ago.

Is this common? If so, any feeling for why?

Somewhere I read a quote to the effect that most of us (even people who read) have read something like 80 percent of the works we're ever going to read before we're 25. I don't remember the exact figures, but I tend to agree.

Comments?

Michael Dirda: Sure. Novels are about love--and once we're past the age of falling in love (whether because of marriage or the years), they hold a lot less appeal. They're a young person's genre, like poetry. Middle aged and older folks prefer nonfiction because they're trying to make sense of the world and their lives. We like to reread books because we hope to recapture our youthful feelings or to understand better a complex work of art. A writer like Trollope creates an alternate world it's good to live in.

Arlington, Va.: I am hoping to go to a major book festival in 2003. Of course, I will go to the National Book Festival. But, if you had your dithers and had to choose between New York and Miami, what would you decide?

Michael Dirda: Miami. But then I'd go to South Beach, sit in the News Cafe, sip a gin and tonic, and watch the supermodels sashay by. I know, I know, You're so shallow, Dirda.

Chicago, Ill.: Hello, Mr. Dirda,

I am heading to Rome and Cinqueterra next week. Do you have any suggestions for books that, even if not specifically about Italy or by Italian writers, would complement my travels?

Thanks very much in advance and thank you for these chats!

Michael Dirda: My favorite Italian writers of the century are both not quite Italian: the Triestine Italo Svevo (As a Man Grows Older, Confessions of Zeno) and the Sicilian Lampedusa, author of The Leopard. You could try some of Moravia--THe Woman of Rome, The Conformist, or maybe even Robert Graves' wonderful I, Claudius, about ancient Rome. Stendhal's La Chartreuse de Parme is also good on Italy, as are the mysteries of MIchael Dibdin.

Arlington, Va.: Mr. Dirda,

Forgive my writing in early, but it's my lunch hour -- I only get to read your chats as transcripts.

I always enjoyed the The Paris Review interviews with writers and the series "Writers at Work." As I recall, Truman Capote, for instance, always wrote in bed, with #2 pencil on a yellow legal pad -- early morning. Then, of course, there are the famous quotes from the interviews, such as Faulkner's "If a writer has to rob his mother he will not hesitate; the 'Ode on a Grecian Urn' is worth any number of old ladies"; and Vladimir Nabokov's "My characters are galley slaves."

My question, then, is about the mechanics of your writing. When, where, with what, etc.

P.S. I too like Diana Krall, but am a much bigger fan of her current escort -- Elvis Costello.

Thanks. I am looking forward to your answers.

Michael Dirda: In haste: I write on a computer--currently a Dell laptop or this big machine at work. I've already read the book, marked favorite pasasges, and thought a little about what approach I want. Then I fumble around for a lead for a few minutes or an hour, finally settle on an opening graf, and slowly add sentence after sentence, always reaading from the top before I add the next sentence. WHen I'm done, Iprint out the piece and fiddle with it some more on paper. Then I hand it in, but a few days later--when it's been edited by my colleagues--I look it over again and maybe make a few changes. As I said, earlier, I never reread my stuff once it's been published. It's too late then to change anything.
The strnage thing is: I like the process of writing and have virtually no interest in the product--it could always have been better. As Walter Benjamin said: The work of art is the death mask of its conception.

ANd that's it for htis week. Till next Thursday--keep reading!

washingtonpost.com:

That wraps up today's show. Thanks to everyone who joined the discussion.

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