Michael Dirda (The Post)

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Dirda on Books
Hosted by Michael Dirda
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor
Thursday, April 12, 2001; 2 p.m. EDT

This week's featured topic:
What book or books made you a reader? What novel ignited your passion for literature?

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

Dirda's name appears weekly in The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a fat literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be writing a lighthearted essay about the joys and burdens of living in a house filled with way too many books. Although he holds a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda is still smart enough to be an unabashed fan of "The Simpsons," noting that "the show's genius derives from its details." He also loves P.G. Wodehouse, intellectual history, children's books and locked-room mysteries – just the sort of range you'd expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner for distinguished criticism.

These days, Dirda says he spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth and daydreaming ("my only real pastime"). Otherwise he just reads books and writes about them, with occasional visits to secondhand bookstores in search of treasures. He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer working on his reviews and Readings columns. "Do not imagine that I regard my taste for literary artifacts as anything but shameless and vulgar," Dirda says, "I have sunk so low as to covet Edward Gorey coffee mugs. I yearn for a bust of Dante to place on a bookcase."

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 talk about favorite reference books, books one would like to have written, quesitons about publishing or reviewing, what have you. So, on with the show!

St. Petersburg, Russia: Dear Michael,

I missed last week's session, but I have more suggestions for the "wannabe" editor: Line by Line by Claire Kehrwald Cook; The elements of Editing by Arthur Plotnik; and The Oxford Dictionary of American Usage and Style by Bryan Garner.

I lug my American Heritage, Third Edition, through the Metro in St. Petersburg on proofreading days.

Book that captured me as a reader: Crime and Punishment. Now I live just two blocks away from Raskolnikov's "house".

Michael Dirda: Good suggestoins. Two blocks from Raskolnikov's house--neat. Crime and Punishment was the first serious grown-up book I ever read. Someone told me it was a kind of murder mystery. ONce I started reading, it was like falling into a dreamworld from which I couldn't and didn't want to escape. Last week someone sugested that Dostoevsky was the only writer to rival Shakespeare and I know what he means. Certainly Freud thought so too. What kind of proofreading do you do in in St. Petersburg?

Fairfax, Va.: Greetings Michael -
asked a few weeks ago about Houllebecq, "Les Particules Elementaires" (the Elementary Particles). I'm about half-way through the English version.

Verdict: not much plot developing at this point, but the juxtaposition of the two brothers' lives is interesting. A LOT of sex, much more (and more graphic) than reviews had led me to believe.

Q: does overt sexuality, in a non sexually-themed book, usually seem like something that the publishers insist on for titillation-factor sales? Any authors you know of who manage to subtly place sexuality into an otherwise non-sexual theme and have it come out as greater than the sum of its parts?

Thanks much!

Michael Dirda: I don't quite follow your second question about greater than the sum of the parts, but I would be surprised if publishers asked for greater sexual content in books that don't obviously need it. One certainly wants a book with some color, energy, etc., but too much sexual electricity is likely to draw attention away from the nonsexul message, as well as alienate possible readers. I suspect that most writers view the sex in their books as integral, essential in some respect to the story they are telling. I've often wondered how writers's spouses or parents respond to such thinngs. I'm told that one of my favorite authors couldn't write a novel with some s and m scenes until his mother died.

Woodbridge, Va.: Dear Michael --

I am the person who suggested the reference theme last week, but as it turned out I was busy during the program and couldn’t submit my own suggestion. So here it is, belatedly. My favorite reference books ever were the Whole Earth Catalogues. I still have my copies in a box in storage. Ostensibly guides to locating “tools for living,” for me these large newsprint tomes comprised a repository of utopian dreams, all the more cherished because I never tried out the ideas I found in them. I kept my mainstream job and never pursued such fantasies as living off the grid on a communal farm somewhere or biking across America or living in Europe on a dollar a day or knitting sweaters from hand-spun wool from my own sheep.

It amazes me how totally our thinking can change, both collectively as a society and as individuals. Today’s young people probably wouldn’t really understand the fascination the Catalog held for me and some of my contemporaries. The atmosphere in which a whole different life seemed possible has vanished, and is nowhere to be found -- except for a collection of dusty old catalogues in an unlabeled box somewhere in my storage bin.

Michael Dirda: Lovely elegy. ah, yes the '60s--bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, but to be young was very heaven. I never quite got into the Whole Earth catalogues, but like many other poeple did take to the notion of self-sufficiency, of living by one's wits. Some of this has to do with youth--I used to sleep on a grate in Paris or on a bench in a train station, neither of which I can probably manage any more: What the authorities condone in youth, they frown upon in middle age. I'd look like a homeless bum, rather than an impecunious student. STill, I think men like to feel they could simply walk away from everything and survive, reinvent themselves, recapture their lost youths. Even now I am periodically tempted to try, but tend to chicken out after more thoughtful reflection: What about my medicines? My pension? Not to mention the mortgage, wife and three kids. But surely they could all manage without me? Or could they?

Librarygirl, Va.: For erotic lines, it's pretty hard to beat "My mouth is wet with your life," from H.D.'s poem "Eros"... for the book that turned me into a reader, it's gotta be "From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" by E.L. Konigsberg... years later I could remember exactly what the kids had for breakfast on the first morning they woke up in (having run away to) the museum (macaroni and cheese for breakfast! Lucky ducks!). Or "The Snark-out Boys and the Avocado of Death" by Pinkwater... more years later I could remember the way the underground beer garden's owner made baked potatoes: plug thumb in, withdraw, insert beaucoup butter and pepper... ahhh. Two books, two food memories--I guess that's sensuality to an 8-yr-old. Oh, and I liked "This is Not a Novel" fine, but thought a too-high number of "entries" rang false, etc.--like the "Apocalypse Now" line "I love the smell of napalm in the morning"... if you're interested in fine turns of phrase, smart observations, and experimental prose, you should run to Bridge St. Books (best experimental stuff bookstore in Washington, I think) and get Lyn Hejinian's "My Life" if you haven't already read it... "experimental" poets are often, it seems to me, doing fresher, smarter work than their counterparts in fiction... of course that doesn't go for -all- of them...

Michael Dirda: I'm sure there are a few misstpes in Markson, but I like the tone of his voice and the way he manages the rhythms of his disjointed quotations. I don't know Heijinan's book but will check it out sometime.
I reviewed the second Snarkout Boys books and got to know Pinkwater a bit (without actually meeting him). I am still convinced that all realtors are actually aliens. And I love the homages to Sherlock Holmes, The Maltese Falcon and other old pop icons that he sticks in his books. Have you read Alan Mendelsohn, the boy from Mars? Perhaps my favorite Pinkwater--I've long wanted to acquire the Klugarsh Mind Control system.
I like your erotic line too. My favorite line of sheer longing comes from the early Greek poet Archilochos: "If it were only my fortune just to touch Neobule's hand." Richmond Lattimore phrases it a little more elegantly in Greek Lyrics, but it's essentially that. In my book Readings I include an essay on eros in literature, in which I refer to lots of books (don't I always). Do you know Meredith's sonnet sequence about divorce, "Modern Love"--it ends with those great lines:
Lovers beneath the singing sky of May,
They wandered once; clear as the dew on flowers:
But they fed not on the advancing hours:
THeir hearts held cravings for the buried day.
THen each applied to each that fatal knife,
Deep questioning, which probes to endless dole.
Ah, what a dusty answer gets the soul
When hot for certainties in this our life. . .
I also think the scene where STephen Dedalus goes to the prostitute in Portrait wonderfully erotic:
"With a sudden movement she bowed his head and joined his lips to his . . . . They pressed upon his brain as upon his lips as though they wre the vehicle of a vague speech; and between them he felt an unknown and timid pressure, darker than the swoon of sin, softer than sound or odour."

Arl, Va.: Hi Michael,

I'd like a recommendation for a good literary biography- I enjoyed the Ellman bio of Wilde as well as Bates on Keats. Are you familiar with The Brontes, by Juliet Barker? I seem to remember that getting favorable reviews when it came out a couple of years ago.

Thank you.

Michael Dirda: VEry detailed is what I recall from reviews. Barker is the great Bronte authority. I don't recall if it was a good read. You might try Richard Holmes's life of Coleridge.

Bethesda, Md.: RE: Last week question about English translation of Sartre's "Les Jeux Sont Faits." A movie based on this script is mentioned in one of the letters from S. de Beuvoir to Nelson Algren (A Transatlantic Love Affair); description sounded so interesting that I attempted to get the book in English to no avail. Finally, throguh interlibrary loan, I got a copy of Louise Varese's version (The Chips are Down), published by Lear (New York) in 1948, close to publication in French. To my fellow reader, keep trying, it's worth it!

Michael Dirda: thanks

Near the White House: Hi, I recently started reading the Phillip Pullman series you recommended (Golden Compass, etc) and I can hardly put these books down! I was just wondering if the rest of his series are as good?

Michael Dirda: Do you mean his other books? The whole Dark Materials tirlogy is great; his other books can be very good, if not quite this special. Try Count Karlstein.

Burke, Va.: Do you ever find it helpful to re-read or first read a book after you have watched a strong TV adaptation? I enjoyed readubg Our Mutual Friend, Martin Chuzzlewit and Lonesome Dove so much more after I'd seen the excellent mini-series of each. What do you think? Am I a pop culture copout?

Michael

Michael Dirda: I hardly ever watch shows on television first, so can't really say. But it's now hard for me to visualize Hercule Poirot without thinking of David Suchet's impersonation--that is the power and danger of television and movie adaptations.

Washington, D.C.: The novel that ignited my passion for literature? A Farewell to Arms. Assigned in 10th grade honors English. Until then, I'd favored history and sports books. I procrastinated until I had just one day to read it. Woke up on a Sunday morning and didn't stop reading until the end, when I found myself begging God, along with Frederic Henry, not to let Catherine die. Rereading it in my 40s, it seemed macho and its attempt at romance sophomoric, but at sixteen the lean, hard prose, the foreign setting, and the sexuality began my love affair with literature.

Michael Dirda: It was like saying goodbye to a statue. After a while I walked back to the hotel in the rain.
THanks

Germantown, Md.: For this week's theme: The books that inspired me to become a reader were the original four A.A.Milne books.. then Watership Down and Call of the Wild.. then finally in 6th grade when I had a patient English teacher who showed us all how to read Romeo and Juliet and I learned that classical literature was nothing to be afraid of. After that the World was wide open....

Question....What modern-day writer would you call the most heavily influenced or the one most similar to Franz Kafka? Someone once suggested Ishiguro's The Unconsoled, but I was so thoroughly disappointed with that book I hope you can think of a better.

Michael Dirda: Interesting question. How about Philip K. Dick--science fiction according to Kafka? Everyone really is out to get you and all of society is a sham to confuse you about reality.

Washington, D.C.: The book that really got me hooked on the visceral power of reading was Geoffrey Household's Rouge Male. (Bad title, but otherwise it is my desert island book, with Diary of A Nobody a close second). The narrative is so great you truly feel as if you are on the adventure with the unnamed viewpoint character. (You are told his name in the pretty good sequel, Rogue Justice, but I won't spoil it for anyone!).

Michael Dirda: Rogue Male is a great book--for those who don't know it, it is the great hunter and hunted novel, a kind of The Most Dangerous Game--if you know that wonderful story--writ large. A guy tries to assassinate a Hitler-like figure, misses and finds himself on the run from an implacable enemy.

SciFiGirl, Va.: Wow, great poetry today. I always loved John Donne's "There lies a flea twixt thee and me" (I'm sure that's not exactly right, but you get the point). I think Donne's sensual poetry is beautiful.

The book that turned me into a reader was the series "The Borrowers", and the book that made me political was "Watership Down." But the book that really made who I am is "The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy," since that book was fundamental in shaping my sense of humor.

And a question: Do you think cyberpunk is dying a slow and painful death? I'm not seeing much that's good out there, with the exception of Neal Stephenson (I'm not a Bruce Sterling fan), and Gibson's work seems to have declined in quality. And are there any women on par with these guys?

Michael Dirda: Don't Panic! Cyberpunk as a school is, I think, pretty much finished. We now have writers who use elements of Neuromancer and its descendants, but I don't think either STerling or Gibson would call themselves cyberpunks any more. If ever--didn't they prefer to be known as the Mirrorshades group, or something like that? I think science fiction is in a bit of the doldrums, but there is one really hot book just published: China Mieville's Perdido Street Station--a grim world, more steam punk than cyberpunk, in which all sorts of animal/human species thrive (a bit like Cordwainer SMith). Very powerful. As for women in cyberpunk--none comes immediately to mind. Anybody else have thoughts on this?

Washington, D.C.: A memorable line from a book I've read recently is in Camus's The Stranger, where the narrator describes firing the gunshots into his victim:
"It was like four sharp knocks on the door of unhappiness."
(or something close to that)
Erotic, no, but certainly stirring.

Michael Dirda: yes,indeed.

Williamsburg, Va.: I was just reading Ann Gerhart's article on the Gone with the Wind parody, which includes the following:

"Jane Smiley wondered what "King Lear" might have done to provoke his daughters so; her result was the Pulitzer Prize-winning "A Thousand Acres," set on a contemporary Iowa farm. Jean Rhys wrote a prequel to "Jane Eyre" called "Wide Sargasso Sea," and Peter Carey took up "Great Expectations" from Magwitch's point of view.
Ancient epic and myth, Shakespeare, Dickens and Austen all are in the public domain... "

Last time I checked Jane Eyre was not written by Austen...
That annoyed me. Thanks for letting me vent.

Michael Dirda: Nice catch. Though I suppose that Heathcliff is Darcy made darker and more primeval.

DuPont Circle: I just finished "The Man Who Was Thursday" What is your opinion of this book?

Michael Dirda: a masterpiece, albeit one with many problems of interpretation. Kingsley AMis thought it the most thrilling book he'd ever read. I'd come close to agreeing.

Washington, D.C.: It was a person rather than a book that ignited my passion for reading. I credit my 2nd and 3rd grade librarian, who later was my 4th grade teacher. I wish he were still alive so that I could thank him. The book that stands out in my memory is Outside, by Andre Norton. The phrase "believing is seeing" always sticks in my mind.

Michael Dirda: ANdre Norton--a blast from the past for me too.

Librarygirl, Va.: Re: Current Kafkas -- the new Jonathan Lethem, "This Shape We're In," is pretty Kafkaesque... didn't do all that much for me, though .

Michael Dirda: thanks

Detroit, Mich.: Inspiring book? As a child, I was enchanted by Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Secret Garden and the whole idea of a secret hiding place in which to read and be as obnoxious and self-absorbed as one liked only to be drawn to another person, in that private place, thereby expanding one's idea of the possibilities of life and the need for generosity.

Favorite reference work: the Old Testament and Augustine's de Doctrina Cristiana (On Christian Doctrine) both for literary and semiological purposes.

Michael Dirda: I'm not sure On christian doctrine counts as a reference, though it is basic to patristic exegesis. Did you use the D.W. Robertson Jr. translation?

Somewhere, USA: The works of William Faulkner ignited my passion for literature. Even though I didn't immediately grasp everything that was happening, the sheer force and beauty of the language buoyed me along. I was, at times, brough to tears. At other times I was ready to throw the book out the window. But reading literature as it shoud be read is an effort. At its best it evokes our most basic emotions, makes us want to live.

Michael Dirda: Yes, as Kafka once said: A book should be the ax for the frozen sea inside us. I've loved Faulkner when I;ve read him, but I've a strong enough liking for elegance and wit that he's never quite managed to displace people like Joyce or Proust in my personal pantheon of modern writers. But it's been years since I read him, and I need to do so again.

Curious: Michael,

Last week someone mentioned some sort of film reference book as their favored reference item. I think you confessed to not watching movies often because you liked them too much. Did you ever think of reviewing movies? Have you taken courses in film studies? From what I know of your writing I'm sure you would be a wonderful film critic and would look forward to your reviews.

Michael Dirda: ACtually, I wrote a piece about a month ago in which I recall the one time I toyed with becoming a film critic. Like much of my stuff, it was 80 percent playful and 20 percent serious. I haven't seen much in the way of films over the past 20 years, but I have a fairly profound knowledge of the movies between 1930 and 1960. Spectacle and cinematography has become too dominant for my taste.

Books, past and present.: So many good books in my childhood! Secret Garden; Little Princess; Little Women; Alan & Naomi; Paula Danziger books; Laura Ingalls Wilder books; Noel Streatfeild books; Jane Eyre.

Lately finished reading a big buncha books by Heyer, George R.R. Martin (looong but good), McKinley (Beauty, Deerskin, The Blue Sword, etal)

Also read Long Finish by Dibdin which was good and Roses, Roses by Janes? which I disliked.

Michael Dirda: thanks

Washington, D.C.: I feel a bit silly posting this answer to the question of what book(s) made me a reader, since many people are picking serious books, but I still remember being enthralled with Dr. Seuss books. It was an early lesson in the fun of language and images and made-up words. I also read mysteries for kids, like Encyclopedia Brown and Nancy Drew. Perhaps it's fitting that the first serious book I really liked was Great Expectations, with its plot twists and surprises.

Michael Dirda: I bet Dr. Seuss is a secret favorite for lots of people. I still reread them periodically. And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street, If I ran the circus, I had trouble in getting to solla sollew--great stuff.

Fairfax, Va.: The book that made me "a reader" was Salinger's "Franny & Zooey" and "My Life and Hard Times" (well, anything by Thurber). I'm the only one in my age group it seems who counts Thurber as a favorite. I also liked the good pulp suspense ("Marathon Man", "The Deep").

Michael Dirda: I loved The Thurber Carnival--especially the piece in which Thurber imagines that his black housekeeper is a witch: "We go now to the attic and become wargs." Wonderful. And of course Walter Mitty:
"It started to rain. To hell with the cigarette, snapped Walter Mitty, as he faced the firing squad, proud and incrutable to the last."
Or however it goes. Ta pocketa, pocketa.

SciFiGirl, Va.: Your description of the that new book (which I am writing down) sounds a little like Jonathan Lethem's "Gun With Occasional Music." Maybe that's the way the genre is headed. Which is good, because Lethem is an amazing author, and too little regarded. You're right that Sterling and Gibson both published stories in the now, sadly, out of print, Mirroshades anthology. Given to me many years ago by someone who didn't know me well, but didn't realize they were setting me off on quite a reading jaunt.

Michael Dirda: thanks. I've met Lethem and liked him, but need to read his books. Ah, time, time! ALas, though, there's more to life than just books.

Chevy Chase: I second "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." Not necessarily the greatest literature, but it is tremendously insightful (e.g., that every known civilization in the galaxy has produced a libation called "jinn and tonixx").

Michael Dirda: Long, long ago, I introduced Douglas Adams at a talk at th eUniversity of Maryland, just after the first book had come out. Half the crowd waved towels.

Librarygirl, Va.: SciFiGirl--Pat Cadigan (female) is considered an important cyberpunk author--this from Amazon will give you a better idea than anything I could come up with as quickly:

"Two-time Arthur C. Clarke Award winner for Best Novel, Pat Cadigan is the Queen of Cyberpunk for the brilliance of her ideas, the genius of her near-future extrapolations, and the beauty of her writing. No one else has explored and illuminated the mind-machine interface with the keen and relentless intelligence she demonstrates in her novels Mindplayers, Synners, Fools, and the long-awaited Tea from an Empty Cup. Her fourth novel is a perceptive, fascinating, witty SF mystery of artificial reality, whose paradoxical name perfectly defines its nature: an immaterial world of pure sensation, where, by legal mandate, everything is permitted and nothing is forbidden."

Michael Dirda: Yes, I was trying to remember Cadigan and couldn't--kept thinking of Nancy Kress and Nacy Springer and Gwyneth Jones, but knew they wreen't right.

Carolyn - The Wannabe Editor: Dear St. Pete, Thank you for your recommendations of books on editing. I apppreciate it, and I'll be sure to pick up copies.

Michael -- Like Germantown, it wasn't necessarily a particular book that sparked my interest in literature, but a wonderful 6th grade teacher who introduced us to the classics and who took the time to explain them to us and answer all our questions.

Prior to that, as a young girl, I was particularly fond of "A Child's Garden of Verses" by Robert L. Stevenson. Why? I don't really know.

Michael Dirda: Where go the boats?

Washington, D.C.: Are you a fan of Virginia Woolf?

I started Mrs. Dalloway last year but gave up after around 65 pages, irritated...

Then, after reading William Gass' Finding a Form, in which he quoted admiringly from Orlando, I decided to try again. I started over, and I have to think I was trying to read it too fast the first time. I'm rather enjoying it...

Michael Dirda: Half a fan--like her essays and letters and diaries. The fiction only sort of, but I tried to read her when i was pretty young.

Herndon, Va.: I don't know if you can help me but I am looking for a couple of good books for my 6 year old nephew. He hasn't really started reading yet, but he is read to every night. Do you or any one in the chat know of any books that might interest him? He already has the Golden Books, Fairy Tales, and Dr. Suess. Something a little out of the ordindary. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Picture books by Chris Van Allsburg, William Joyce, William Steig. Other suggestions?

Charm City, Md.: Inspiring books!! Norton Juster's The Phantom Tollbooth changed my life. It's funny, it's clever, & it shows you (without being overly didactic) that if you think that life is boring, you can be sure that yours will be.

Michael Dirda: Ah yes, Rhyme and Reason. There's a terrific tape of Claire Bloom reading the Juster classic. Pity he never really wrote anything else--a short story and The LIne and the Something or other, but neighter on the level of Tollbooth, which is almost an Alice in Wonderland for our time.

Washington, D.C.: On latter day Kafkas, what about Hrabal, especially Too Loud a Solitude and not just because of the Prague connection

Michael Dirda: Ok. I've not read Hrabal.

Washington, D.C.: Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth made a tremendous impression on me while in college.

But what a wretched movie they made of it this past year!! Did you happen to see it?
If not, consider yourself lucky.

Michael Dirda: Never saw the film. Now won't.

DuPont Circle (Again): Re: The Man Who Was Thursday

Yes. I am having the most difficult time figuring out what it was "about!"

I've heard their is an annotated version. Would that help?

Michael Dirda: Maybe. But nobody really can solve the book's essential mystery satisfactorily. I think it's supposed to remain tantalizing. STill there are such wonderful scenes and dialogues. And that opening description of the sunset. What a bookl.

Buggs Meanie, Va.:

Encyclopedia Brown was great for me when I was little. Then it was comics, sci-fi short stories and bad G.I Joe books.

I read Watership Down in second grade. It seemed like such a huge mountain… 300+ pages!!! I remember running around telling my parents "It's about bunnies, but they fight!"

The next book to knock me on my literary butt was "Dandelion Wine." There was something about it that got to me.

Michael Dirda: I love that--it's about bunnies, but they fight.

Fairfax, Va.: Flannery O'Conner. I don't think I've ever read more beautiful and painfully honest stories in my life. Her final works ("Parker's Back) were absolutely brilliant. I've always wondered what she could've accomplished had she not died so young.

Michael Dirda: Do you know her letters--they're at least as good as her stories, and funny or funnier. The Habit of BEing, it's called. One of my bedside books.

Herndon, Va.: I would try Amelia Bedelia books. A lot of play on words, but at 6, he should probably get most of them. Very funny! My 8 year old was a big fan at about that age.

Michael Dirda: thanks.

Vienna, Va.: CS Lewis Narnia Books and Richard Scary

Michael Dirda: thanks. Scarry

Germantown, Md.: If sci-fi is to be considered in the doldrums, horror must be dead. It seems that horror has collectively devolved into pulpy paperback material rather then a literary genre.

Or have I just missed out on the good stuff?

Michael Dirda: No, horror is pretty much dead for the moment. but it will rise from the grave! See, master, the creature is beginning to move even as we speak!!! Or maybe not.

Washington, D.C.: From the reference book/cookbook discussion I certainly reccomend Patrick O'Connell's Inn at Little Washington cookbook --even if you don't cook. It's the culinary equivalent of pornography (and I hear he's got another one coming out soon).

Michael Dirda: thanks, i think.

Librarygirl, Va.: (chuckling)...were the S&M scenes worth the wait? Which author?

Michael Dirda: That would be telling. Perhaps over a drink or two, I might be enticed into revealing this secret....

Towson, Md.: Nancy Drew turned me into a reader, and fairy tales, and Marvel Comics, which lead to a fascination with mythology, which lead to the Authurian ouevre, which lead to the historical novels of Thomas Costain which lead to the "History of Civilization" by the Durants which lead me to Voltaire, and so it goes.... The first novel I thrilled to was "The Three Musketeers." Admittedly inaspicious beginnings, but was anyone turned on to reading by Joyce?

Michael Dirda: I loved The Count of Monte Cristo--the great novel of education. From ignorant dopey sailor into urbane man of the world. Of course, Joyce or at least Stephen dedalus loved the Count--remember the passage at the end of Portrait that begins "The figure of that dark avenger. . ." and ends with the humorous, "Madame, I never eat muscatel grapes."

Chevy Chase, Md.: A treasured reference book is the 'Oxford Dictionary of Literary Quotations.' Sample in the 'Critics' section: "A good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul in the midst of masterpieces." The writer must have had you in mind.

Michael Dirda: No doubt. It used to be denigrating to call a critic someone who believed in the soul's adventures among the masterpices.

New York City, N.Y.: The Stories of John Cheever

These wonderful, lyrical stories were the first fiction I read eagerly -- even compulsively -- as an adult.
His lyrical prose and honest vision of human nature are magical. Somehow he makes the people and events in a narrow world -- upper middle class northeastern WASPs -- meaningful to everyone.

(I was sad to see that the recent reissue, though more comfortably typeset, left off that classic red cover.)

Michael Dirda: It is a night when kings in golden armor ride elephants over the alps. Ah, yes, Cheever--lovely things. But alas our time is up for this week. Next week we'll have to have our session on either Tuesday or Friday, because I need to be out of town on Wednesday and thursday. Stay posted. The time should be the same, thoug: 2 PM. Till then, keep reading! Sorryh I didn't get to all the questions.

washingtonpost.com: Michael Dirda will return Friday, April 20 at 2 p.m.

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