Something Old, Something New

There was a time when book talk was a regular feature of this blog. For one reason or another the last book post was nine months ago when the view out my windows was still pelicans and blue ocean and not yet a forest of twisted live oaks with dangling beards of Spanish moss. The drift away from book talk has been too long and some readers might have wondered what happened to dislodge the periodic “book reports.” Easy answer for that; nothing more than a change of scene, adjustments to that change and preoccupation with thoughts curving in a different direction. High time for a return to earlier topics.

The “new” remote country setting far from the tumult of traffic, tourists and malls has if anything boosted the time allowed for reading. A tiny local library, a multitude of online booksellers and minimal interruption provide the opportunity to explore or reconsider heaps of books, writers both new and old. The words ‘new and old’ should suggest that reading is a hand-off between new writers, new books and older, established or deceased writers and their work. Am I alone in thinking that reading pleasure includes not only books newly published, but on occasion an old book gone back to a second time, and other times a dusty and battered paperback picked up for 25¢ at a yard sale?

Here are a few of the books in my reading stack the past few weeks, three of them new and two going back a few years. Nothing like a comprehensive review for any of the five, only a few brief remarks which depending on taste, might encourage or discourage.

Light of the World (July 2013) by James Lee Burke

Long a fan of James Lee Burke and rarely disappointed, this one failed to make the grade. Few would argue that Burke is a writer of great talent, often touching on the sublime. His descriptions of south Louisiana are without compare and bring to life a setting that ripples across the skin with tactile expression. Burke is best known for his ongoing series of novels featuring police detective, Dave Robicheaux as the major character, most of them set in and around New Iberia, Louisiana. Not for the first time, Burke has moved Dave Robicheaux northwest to Missoula, Montana for a clash with bad folks in that neck of the woods. While the setting is Montana, the story still adheres to the established parameters of a Dave Robicheaux story but this time the writer has fallen overboard into a deep trough of moralizing, pondering too long the nature of evil and it’s origins. A heavy-handed  bee-in-the-bonnet about the overall hopelessness of us regular folks against the barons of industry and their environmental scourge is another weight to the novel. With Light of the World, I found myself murmuring for the first time, “Get on with your story and stop with all the preaching.” A highly recommended writer stumbling a little off track. 

Dissident Gardens (September 2013) by Jonathan Lethem

If you’ve never read Jonathan Lethem, run to the bookstore or dial up Amazon now. This guy is one of America’s best young writers and it will be no surprise if this latest book wins either a Pulitzer or the National Book Award. Lethem writes of Brooklyn like nobody else and Dissident Gardens is right in his backyard. The story covers a stretch of years in the lives of 1950s communist, Rose Zimmer, her black policeman lover, Rose’s radical daughter and son living in a 60s East Village commune, and Professor Cicero Lookins, son of the black policeman. Always top notch, Lethem has outdone himself with this one.

Lookaway, Lookaway (August 2013) by Wilton Barnhardt

A novel of the American south, Lookaway, Lookaway centers around the dissolution of a once wealthy aristocratic family in Charlotte, North Carolina. Scandal and mishap work their ruin in the family of Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke and their four children. The novel includes a moderate dose of Civil War history but don't misunderstand that to mean it bogs down in long passages of dull history. On the contrary, Barnhardt’s tale is a laugh out loud romp, alternately funny, poignant and disturbing. Despite their foibles and weaknesses, the characters are people we can’t help empathizing with.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970) Gabriel García Márquez

Since it’s publication, this Márquez classic has been put by many readers, critics and scholars among the best books of the twentieth century. No argument from this reader on that claim. It came to me last week that it was time to give this book a second read and no surprise that a second reading is every bit as rich and telling as the first. A book of this depth offers the assurance that a second or third reading will uncover nuances and insights that slipped past the first time. Not quite finished with my second reading, I’m starting to regret there aren’t more pages to the story. One Hundred Years of Solitude should be on your ‘have to read’ list. Hard to imagine how anyone could be disappointed or bored by this book, one that is even more enchanting than the later Márquez diamond, Love in the Time of Cholera.

Rivalry (1916) by Nagai Kafû

I will be honest and say from the start that this is not a book that will attract a great many American or Western readers, unless they have an interest in the details of life in the early twentieth century Tokyo demimonde. It is a tale of geishas and their patrons and the intrigues that colored the lives of a small segment of Japanese society in that age. Beautifully written, with lyrical passages describing the city and its people, Rivalry (Udekurabe in the original) is only one of Nagai Kafû’s (1879-1959) several paeans to a vanishing culture. The writer is best remembered for his short novel The River Sumida (1911).

Beans, Brooklyn & Controversy

Another of those away from the beach days…

For a short time there I thought my telephone troubles with Sprint were a thing of the past. Key to the problem is service. A shortage, and too often lack of customer service here in the US continues to color my post-Japan days. Seems like for every good and helpful customer service rep you encounter, there are nine other not so good reps to wade through before reaching the good one. My phone trouble is definitely not a thing of the past, but Monday did at least bring two different first class service reps from Sprint. The frustrating side of the ongoing phone problem comes with the knowledge that any and all problems would have been solved in the first thirty minutes if this were happening in Japan. A fairly simple cell phone problem with Sprint is now into its fifth month. Tell me something is not wrong with that scenario. This time I have been promised delivery of a brand new telephone between twenty-four and forty-eight hours. Could happen, I suppose.

Over in that neighborhood, so taking a small detour to Barnes & Noble was the sweet I needed to wash away the taste of a phone forever bad. Had been awhile, so the chances of finding something good were high. Not hard to convince me into sidetracking to a bookstore; the hard part comes in trying to get out of the store empty-handed. Once inside, on occasions when books on the ‘new’ shelf have nothing to entice, the feeling is something like disappointed relief. The relief is over not spending money before getting ten feet inside the doors. My hurdle this time was back in the L section with the discovery of an unfamiliar book by David Leavitt, The Indian Clerk. Leavitt is a writer I usually keep up with, chiefly because of his very impressive and controversial book ‘about’ English writer Stephen Spender, While England Sleeps (1993). The first printing of the book was eventually pulped following a court decision in favor of the Spender family. Leavitt then rewrote the disputed sections for a later edition.

Next to hit my radar was Jonathan Lethem’s novel, The Fortress of Solitude. If it’s anything close to the earlier book, Motherless Brooklyn I will be a happy reader. To those unfamiliar with Jonathan Lethem you can sample his wares through a New Yorker short story here. I’ve always thought it was a toss up between Lethem and Paul Auster as to who gives us the richer Brooklyn savor.

Being so near, my taste buds and imagination were getting roused by vibrations from Chipotle a few hundred feet down the road. The first time for lunch at the restaurant, an oversized burrito bursting with rice, beans, cheese, avocado and sour cream enough for an NFL front four put me off and I stayed away for a while. On my second visit I hit the jackpot with a rice, bean and chicken green salad. The only drawback with Chipotle is the noise and lack of inside space, which means sitting outside—a hot spot in August. Inside or out, the lunch is tasty, filling and reasonably priced.

Good feeling to walk through the rain to my car.