Hosted by Michael Dirda Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Thursday, June 26, 2003; 2:00 p.m ET
Washington Post Book World Senior Editor Michael Dirda took your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading. Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or describing his travels to, say, a P.G. Wodehouse Convention. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. He particularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts -- just the sort of range you'd expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner in criticism (1993). These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. In the fall of 2000 Indiana University Press published "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments," a selection from Dirda's Book World columns. He hopes to bring out a companion volume soon. Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He'd also like to spend six months in Florida writing a book that would become a runaway best seller, a critical success, and the hottest cinematic property of the year. A guy can daydream, right? The transcript follows. Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
|
Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! Well, having yearned for summer to come to Washington, it has--as usual--arrived with a vengeance. Baking ninety something degrees.
Suddenly it's the kind of weather that calls for beach reading--but I am, with my usual perfect timing, half way through the long, if magisterial Rise of Western Christendom, 200-1000, by Peter Brown. He's one of my scholarly heroes, but still I coulnd't help but linger longingly in front of the magazine racks. Why yes, I'd like six-pack abs in 14 days, and yes I'd like to know the key words that will make any woman swoon with desire, and yes, I'd like to know about the real life of some Hollywood superstar I've never heard of. Well, actually, I could skip that last magazine piece.
But no, heat or no heat, our minds should be on higher matters for the next hour. Serious reading, great works of world literature, classics of the genres.
So let's turn to your questions and we'll see what happens. On with the show!
________________________________________________
Lewisville, Tex.:
Hi Michael,
I’m trying to compile a list of authors whose entire body of work, not just a couple of books, is outstanding and a must-read. Who would be your top 10 picks?
Michael Dirda: Oh, we start with the easy questions, do we? Well, except for the earliest authors nearly every great author is a composite of Must-reads and Odd or Unsuccessful or Juvenile experiments. But to make a quick stab:
Shakespeare, Plato, Sophocles, Homer, Dante, Joyce, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Cervantes, Murasaki Shikibu.
________________________________________________
The obligatory HP question: Michael,
I know you're sick of Harry P. but I have a question about the underlying basis for your ire, and it is: Do you actually personally know anyone, especially children, who read Harry Potter and nothing else? All the kids I know who read it either were avid readers before and since, or have gone on to read other imaginative works as a result of reading Harry. So it isn't the most literary series in the history of kidlit, but so what if the kids are all reading other stuff as well?
Michael Dirda: Well, I hope what you say is true--ie that kids are going on to read other good books besides those by J.K. Rowling. She's a terrific writer--I did review the first two after all--but I do shudder when I hear about kids who've read all the books four times. Why just today I heard of a kid who was already half way through his second reading of the latest novel. But if kids are reading Joan Aiken, Daniel Pinkwater, Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, et al, great.
________________________________________________
Chicago, IL: Mr. Dirda,
Have you ever read Robert Graves' "The White Goddess," which bills itself as a "historical grammer of poetic myth?" It is a perplexing but consistently interesting read, one that, in the second chapter alone, immediately calls to mind one of your favorites: "The Owl Service" by John Garner. Do you have any thoughts on Graves' odd but learned book? Thanks.
Michael Dirda: Yes, I loved The White Goddess as a kid, even though I could tell that Graves was seriously addled in his scholarship. But it's a great book. I even mention it in my forthcoming piece on the supernatural fiction of Vernon Lee. By the way, it's Alan Garner. And do you know the story of how the first two editors who were offered the book turned it down, one went crazy, another hanged himself. Graves then offered the book to T.S. Eliot at Faber, who accepted it--later that year Eliot received the Order of Merit, the Nobel Prize and his play The Cocktail Party was a hit on Broadway. The Goddess rewards her own.
________________________________________________
York, Pa.:
Michael,
Read your chats for a while and haven't heard anyone mention William T. Vollman. A friend recommended his "Butterfly Stories" to me (OK, OK it was actually the Washington Post blurb that put him in the same league with Pynchon and Gaddis and Barth). This is a graphic, intense book with a rather unsavory narrator, but I couldn't see greatness in it, other than Vollmann's willingness to take risks. Do you or any chat participants have any thoughts on Vollmann?
Michael Dirda: I think Vollmann an amazing talent, and I think he produces exceptionally interesting sentences for somebody who writes such Niagara's of prose. But I've never read one of his books all the way through. My good friend Steve Moore admires him immensely though, and that counts a lot in my book. Other views?
________________________________________________
Lewisville, Tex.: Thanks for the 10 must-read authors. Which edition of Shakespeare do you recommend? Is there a good prose version as well?
Michael Dirda: A prose version of Shakespeare--you must be kidding. What would be the point? Reference books will give you the plots, and there are books like Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare, but it's the language, at least as much as the dramatic skill, thta makes Shakespeare great.
I like individual editions of the plays--Oxford, Arden or Cambridge--but two good one volume editions are the Riverside and the new Norton.
________________________________________________
Rockville, Md.: Hi Mr. Dirda,
It's rare that I come across people who like P.G. Wodehouse. I’m a huge fan -- especially of the Blandings series and of the "Emsworth and the Girlfriend" story. Do you have a favorite story/series? Thanks!
Michael Dirda: I like most Wodehouse--he's one of the few writers who always makes one feel happy.
Lord Emsworth and the Girlfriend is widely regarded as his best, and oddly most touching, story. HIs othre great short classics include Uncle Fred Flits By and many of the Mulliner tall tales--especially Honeysuckle Cottage and Strychine in the Soup.
But, wait I must stop. We have an embargo on all questions and answers about Wodehouse. It completely slipped my mind. A thousand apolgies to you loyal lurkers who are sick of Jeeves and company.
________________________________________________
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.: Michael, thanks again for doing these chats. You're my favorite critic/reviewer/essayist on bookish things.
I'd like to ask you a question that might be kind of dumb, but in all the criticism I've read I've never seen it addressed.
In the translation of Madame Bovary I've read, the novel begins with a first-person narrator in the first sentence, describing the first time he (he says "we") saw Charles Bovary.
The first person is never used in the rest of the novel, and the narrator seems to be omniscient, if I recall accurately. Do you have any explanation for this? I know Flaubert did not make a "mistake"--and I think I just didn't bring my sharpest neurons to the table when reading this book. Thanks!
Michael Dirda: THis is, in fact, a famous crux in Flaubert studies. You're absolutely right to wonder about it--because no one is quite sure why Flaubert did it this way. There are theories--a sense of immediacy, for instance--but I don't believe anyone knows. Dr. Trouard, if you're out there, did you address this in your recent discussion of Bovary?
Also, thanks for the kinds words about my chat--though I wonder how stiff or numerous the competition is.
________________________________________________
Ballston, Va.: Hi, Michael -
Summer Reading lists -- a good guidepost, or death to independent reading? Do your sons enjoy their summer reading? I ask only because the LIST has become anathema to my son (for some reason). He reads, no problem, but anything on the list is poison.
In that vein, where would you go for summer reading ideas/suggestions?
Michael Dirda: I don't think schools should have required reading during the summer, but no one listens to me. I also think that many of the books chosen for these lists are dull, especially for boys, where there seems to be so much emphasis on sensitive stories about other people and cultures. Adventure stories are what boys, and girls too, should read in the summer.
It's hard to suggest titles without knowing your son's age. I'd talk to a librarian or bookstore owner, listing the books yhour son has liked in the past.
________________________________________________
Toano, Va.: Have you read any of Michael Malone's books? I think that Handling Sin and Foolscap are his best books. He draws very real and sympathetic characters, and is capable of writing outrageously funny scenes.
Michael Dirda: I've heard this about Malone, but have never read his novels. Perhaps I should. Isn't he the one who's been writing some daytime drama for the last 10 years or so?
________________________________________________
Bethesda, Md.: One comment and a question. To get those six pack abs do sit ups with a hard back copy of "War and Peace."
Question: Ten authors and their great works; what about Steinbeck, Hemingway, Faulkner? Contemporary to be sure, but I believe they will last.
Michael Dirda: They will last. But the question was to name great authors whose every book was worth reading. All three of those giants wrote at least a few relative duds.
________________________________________________
Takoma Park, Md.: My book group insists on reading Stephen Ambrose's "Undaunted Courage." Friends who recently studied history say its more a hagiography than a history, plus I bristle at reading Ambrose at all.
Any alternative substantial reads on Lewis and Clarke? Someone's already proposed their diaries.
Michael Dirda: Why not read Howard Frank Mosher's new novel, The True History? It sounds like a hoot--the true story of the expedition, told in the style of LIttle Big Man or The Sot Weed Factor.
I'm sure there are more scholarly books on L and C too. Or why not read some classic of western history, like Bernard de Voto's Beyond the Wide Missouri (I think that title's right).
________________________________________________
Harry, Harry: Oh, I don't know if I agree with you that kids have to be reading things other than Harry Potter. (FYI, I'm 28 and have never had any interest in picking up any one of those books.) I'm loath to state the obvious, but as kids get older, their minds grow and change. The summer when I was 12, my family moved and I devoured, easily, 20 Danielle Steele books. Obviously, they got boring, so I moved on to Puzo, Vonnegut, and Salinger. Which got boring, so I moved on to... (and on and on)
I say, if they're reading, and it's not porn, great. Their fidgety minds will let them know when it's time to move on.
Michael Dirda: I never said have to--I said I thought reading Rowling was fine but that Ithought kids needed to try other books too. But your general principle is sound--you read the Hardy Boys, then Sherlock Holmes, then Crime and Punishment. (In fact, see my forthcoming memoir, An Open Book, for just such a progress. Due from Norton in October.)
I presume that you now devote your days and nights solely to Thomas Aquinas and Finnegans Wake. In my own case, I still read the equivalents of Danielle Steel (no e, by the way, must be the most common authorial error of our time) as well as some pretty demanding tomes. We tend to still like Pepsi even when we normally drink Merlot.
________________________________________________
Paris, France: An expat fan here who's starting to read in French. Just wondering, what is so special about the Pleiades editions of French classics? They are beautiful, but I was a little shocked at the price (50 euros, or almost $60 each).
Michael Dirda: OH yes, they are very expensive--but look what you get: The standard scholarly edition of the author, copious notes, a reliable, very readable text, a compact volume that will last your lifetime. Obviously, it makes most sense to buy Pleiades editions of favorite writers or people you will return to again and again--You'll probably only read most Balzac novels once, if that (with a handful of exceptions) and so you can probably be happy with a livre de poche. But Baudelaire, say, you will return to time and again. Still, I would own them all, if I could.
________________________________________________
Falls Church, Va.: Have you read Michael Malone's "Dingley Falls?" Any opinions?
Michael Dirda: NO. What's this, Michael Malone day?
________________________________________________
Lewisville, Tex.:
Shakespeare in prose -- it's for a young friend of mine who refuses to read any plays, but still wants to cut her teeth on the bard.
From your essay, 'Shake Scenes' in Readings, I gather that Hamlet is your favorite tradegy. What's your fave comedy?
Michael Dirda: A Midsummer Night's Dream or As You Like It.
Leon Garfield, another kids author, has a nice prose retelling of 16 of the plays.
________________________________________________
Charlotte, N.C.:
I'll TELL you the words that will make a woman swoon with desire: "I have a Ph.D in comparative literature." Would work on me!
Michael Dirda: Hey, I have a Ph.D. in comparative literature--in medieval studies and European romanticism, no less. But I've never noticed any doe-eyed young thing just quivering with scarcely controlled desire. Maybe I need to get my glasses checked.
________________________________________________
Vienna, Va.: I am currently reading (and rolling on the floor laughing over) "The Eyre Affair" by Jasper Fforde. Did you read this, and have you read its sequel? I think Fforde is a dazzling new talent.
Michael Dirda: Yes, he's a lot of fun. I reviewed, favorably bien sur, The Eyre Affair. In fact, I learned about hte book through this chat--one of my posters told me about the book. My friend Lloyd Rose praised Lost in a Good Book a few months back.
________________________________________________
Toano, Va.: Re: Michael Malone. He was the head writer for "One Life to Live" from 1991-96. If you enjoy academic novels with a great deal of humor, try "Foolscap." "Handling Sin" deals with a father and son, and is both hilariously funny and deeply serious. He also has a couple of highly regarded mysteries.
Thanks for recommending that folks looking for reading suggestions talk to librarians. As a librarian, it is always a chore to convince library users that it is ok to talk to librarian about what you want to read (as opposed to just looking for information)
Michael Dirda: Thanks. Yes, librarians are pearls beyond price. I'm not kidding. If I hadn't grown up in a world where boys never thought about becoming librarians, I would probably have led a happy life as a small town librarian.
________________________________________________
Silver Spring, Md., heat island: For Lewisville: Try an audio recording of Shakespeare for your reluctant friend. If she doesn't see the stuff set out in play form, she might be more open. Shakespeare is about language, which prose does not capture. Might as well read Hollinshed and be done with it.
Michael Dirda: Yes. There's a new audio series of the plays from Arkangel-I've listened to Macbeth with pleasure. I've often wondered if Peter Brook's wonderful and bawdy version of A Midsmummer NIght's Dream was ever filmed. I saw it at Stratford 30 years ago--the best Shakespeare performance I've ever seen.
________________________________________________
Richmond, Va.: Boy -- they were just kidding around when they titled Nabokov's book of intervies, etc. "Strong Opinions" -- I've never seen anyone basically dismiss the entire corpus of Dostoevsky, Faulkner and TS Eliot out hand the way he does. I love strong opinions even when I don't share them -- but what is your opinion of Nabokov's literary criticism (I know you admire his novels)? I think he appears unable to appreciate writers whose work is moral (grounded in religion) rather than ethical.
Michael Dirda: I think quite highly of Nabokov as an elucidator of texts--but he does have strong views about art. He loathes anything that seems kitschy or sentimental or phony--poshlust is the Russian term--and prefers to talk about the artistry and even the mechanics of a novel or story. Try his Lectures on Literature--talks about Joyce, Kafka, and other giants of world literature. There's a sequel called Lectures on Russian Literature.
________________________________________________
Round Hill, Va.: Good smoggy day to you! I have more of a comment than a question, so here 'tis... if anyone out there is looking for a great read this summer, rush out -- no, run out -- and buy "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. I can't wait until everyone's in bed at night so I can get back to it. I even considered (very briefly, of course) postponing a night out with the girls just to stay home to read it! It's a wonderful read! Enjoy!
Michael Dirda: Hard to resist such enthusiasm.
________________________________________________
Atlanta, Ga.: Is the "summer reading" issue of BW out yet? I haven't been able to locate it online. My elderly Mother leads a book club that just finished their 100th book! Good stuff, too, no junk. Now that she can no longer subscribe to BW, she ask me to find this issue for her. Help please.
Michael Dirda: We don't really do summer reading issues any more. Sorry to break your mother's heart. The New York Times Book Review does, however.
________________________________________________
Washington, D.C.: Last week someone posted the following: "I read "The Critic As Artist" on James Woods first novel by Wyatt Mason in the latest Harpers. Maybe it was the wee hours and a mind working at a slower pace but I was totally turned off by the conceived attempt by both reviewer and the reviewed -- is there a legitimate criticism being pursued by either/or -- or some type of critical elitism bearing down disdainfully on all other writers?"
I, too, read the piece in question. It is a discussion of Wood's novel AND his criticism, and how the novel relates to the criticism. I found it to be quite interesting and well-written. Ultimately it is a positive assessment of the novel. I really think it's worth reading for anyone interested in fiction. As far as Wood's criticism goes, Mason's take on it strikes me as not unlike what might be the result if you (Michael Dirda) were to crtically assess Jonathan Yardley's criticism. Not harshly, but nevertheless with differing vantage points... It saddens me that the piece could be read as "elitist" in any way -- as if the discussion of writing and writerly intent must necessarily be elitist.
By the way, I picked up a Rimbaud volume this week, and coincidentally the translator is Wyatt Mason.
Michael Dirda: Interesting comment. Can Rimbaud be translated?
________________________________________________
Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: Re Flaubert and his meticulous craftsmanship reminded me of my three reasons (rationalizations perhaps) for being a slow reader:
o The Flaubert kind-of-pain should be honored.
o Most speed-readers I know don't seem to know anything.
o I'm no good at it. Thanks.
Michael Dirda: Thoreau, I think, said that books should be read as deliberately as they are written.
________________________________________________
Takoma Park, Md.: Michael Malone:
After reading a few of his novels, I think he's one of those amusing literary entertainers who packs wit and insight into unusual plots.
Unfortunately, he doesn't manage any depth along with it, making him not as interesting as, say, Chris Moore, or many others of the type.
Just suck it up and re-read David Lodge or someone, who is both literary and witty most of the time.
Michael Dirda: Thanks.
________________________________________________
Rockville, Md.: Bernard DeVoto's granddaughter here (though he died before I was born). It's "Across the Wide Missouri." But thanks for the plug!
Michael Dirda: Well, what do you know! I had a feeling that title wasn't quite right.
________________________________________________
Washington, D.C.: I have a suggestion and a question.
For fans of "Confederacy of Dunces" I would recommend "Dog of the South" by Charles Portis. It's a very funny book.
And now, my question. Has anyone else read "The Godforgotten" by Gladys Schmidt? I really loved that book, but no one I talk to is familiar with it.
Michael Dirda: Thanks for the plugs for Toole and Portis. Don't know the other book.
________________________________________________
Like fauna in a sauna: There was a mention in today's "Letters" about one Thorne Smith and a likening to Wodehouse (not again) in an Amazon review. I, of course, have never heard of him, although wasn't there a Topper TV show in the '60's? (he evidently wrote Topper). Anyway, do you have a data capsule on him? thanks.
Michael Dirda: Ah, Thorne Smith--author of Topper, The Stray Lamb, The Bishop's Jaegers, The Glorious Pool, and many others. He wrote mildly naughty, humorous novels during the 1920s and perhaps early '30s. The writing isn't up to Wodehouse, but they have an ingratiating period flavor. Hen-pecked banker husbands dally with the Goddess Venus, come to life, over magnums of champagne at sparkling night clubs with bedroom farce to follow. That sort of thing. I haphazardly collect his books. The Glorious Pool has a particularly striking and daring cover--a quite naked young woman on the edge of a swimming pool (one that restores youth).
________________________________________________
Richmond, Va.: I am an adult teaching myself a second language -- I enjoy the challenge of mastering the grammar and syntax, but am really wondering if there will ever come a time when I can appreciate the literature without the mechanics of translation getting in the way? I think you said you read French --- does there ever come a time when reading a second language becomes "natural" for lack of a better word?
Michael Dirda: Of course it does--but it takes a while, and it helps to go and live in the country where the language is spoken. When I lived in France I thought and dreamt in French, but it's now been so long that when I speak the language I half translate from English. Immersion is the key.
________________________________________________
Lexington, Ky.: Hi Michael, Don't know why we should all get excited about "beach" reads every summer. The sun's rays are bad for us and sand is bad for the books. And, why should summer be for "light" reads anyway. That's all for people who don't read much during the year. But for those who like romance, the romance of reading and literary books, "Chasing Shakespeare," by Sarah Smith is a wonderful light read about who wrote 'Shakespeare' in the spirt of Byatt's "Possession" as two academics pursue the clues (while remaining sometimes clueless themselves ).
Michael Dirda: Thanks for the endorsement. I understand that the critic MIchael Wood has a new book coming out on Shakespeare this fall. I actually like reading under an umbrella on the sand, listening to the waves, sipping beer. I read a good chunk of Tadie's biography of Proust that way.
________________________________________________
Fairbanks, Ala.: I have read "Crime and Punishment." I would like to know your favorite Russian novels to go to from here. Thanks
Michael Dirda: Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground, Gogol's Dead Souls; Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, PUshkin's The Captain's Daughter, Oblomov, CHekhov's stories.
________________________________________________
Cubesville, Md.: Have been reading Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and beyond the pleasures of the play itself, have enjoyed looking at the language (easier to do when it's all prose). (Favorite quote: "We burn daylight" for let's not waste time.) It is amazing (to me) that some of the dialog could be taken from a conversation today, some 400 years after the play was written; while some words and jokes/word plays are so dated that even with the help of the editors footnotes to unravel their meaning, they make little sense. So I'm wondering, what factors determine if words endure in English over time and if you have some thoughts and/or can recommend a book or essay suitable for a common reader that relates to this? Thanks!
Michael Dirda: James Salter called his memoir Burning the Days--I wonder if he'd been reading Merry Wives.
I don't know why some words survive and some don't. Use, need? I'd check out: Owen Barfield's History in English Words and the works of Eric Partridge.
________________________________________________
Fair Oaks, Va.: Hi. The Post says that George Orwell is being reassessed. He apparently wasn't the secular saint that leftists had hoped he was. I think this is strange, in that it isn't exactly new (his novels certainly were scathing critiques of leftist government). Giving the names of fellow travelers to the UK government was bad form, but maybe attributable to his bad health. I recall reading his correspondence with Evelyn Waugh; Waugh admired "1984", but disagreed that religious belief would ever disappear. I have a sketchy memory that Orwell's wife was unloved by many, but don't recall why (interfering? bossy?). Anyway, do you have an opinion on this reassessment of Orwell which is underway?
Michael Dirda: The wife, Sonia Brownell, is the subject of a book I recently reviewed: Hilary Spurling's The Girl from the Fiction Department--I highly recommend it. Orwell is being reexamined--Michael Shelden wrote a largely unsympathetic life, and many have found that this saint wasn't quite as holy as they had imagined. Orwell's a peculiar case--Most writers lead messy or bad lives, but we don't really care--it's the books that count. But in Orwell's case, it's the man, at least as much as the books, who's become the icon. But I think we can take the good, sensible man of passion and conviction that we find in the essays as the real Orwell, or at least hte only one that counts now. Biography is a dubious business at times.
________________________________________________
Richmond, Va.: Hi Michael,
It's so hot this week all of a sudden. What's the best reading for this time of year? I would particularly love to investigate poetry, letters and biography as I have spent years reading mainly novels. Thanks.
Michael Dirda: Oh. THis is too big a quesiton and time is up. Read Housman's poems, Flaubert's letters, and Ellmann's biography of Joyce.
Well, until next Thursday at 2--keep reading!
________________________________________________
Automatically Update Page
| Get New Responses | Submit Question
 |