in one person

This is my third (only!) John Irving novel. I have two others sitting at home* that I'll get to at some point, but I read The Hotel New Hampshire a couple of years ago, and The World According to Garp back the college days.What I liked about both of those is what Irving didn't say in his writing, as much as what he did say. That didn't seem as tangible in this novel, but that isn't a fault. The writing here is more casual and jumped around in time in order to tell the story the way his narrator would.

In One Person is told in the first person, and it traces the narrator's life story, from a small, private high school in '50s Vermont, to the present day. Irving writes the story from the protagonist's point of view, and it appears that he uses the writing style that he has assigned to this character, who is a writer. I get this impression because, as usual, Irving has done a wonderful job of fleshing out his characters, so that after just a few chapters, I felt as if I knew them, if only through the stories told to me by a good friend, about his own family. The narrator tells his story in a kind of free association style one might use to tell a story at a party.

Irving is still writing about dysfunctional families, and while this family isn't nearly as dysfunctional as the families in Garp or Hotel New Hampshire, they certainly have their challenges. This story is focused on the narrator, and what it was like growing up as a bisexual man in Vermont in the '50s, in New York during the sexual revolution in the '60s and the rise of the Gay Rights movement in the '70s,  and the AIDS epidemic in the '80s.

As usual, Irving doesn't shy away from tricky, complex and often times marginalized human relationships in his story-telling. In fact they intrigue him, and he examines them so closely that we as readers can't fail to find common ground and a shared humanity with his characters. In One Person is touching, funny, outrageous, incredible, and fun to read.

Read this book.

* The Cider House Rules & A Widow for One Year

nothings sacred

Has anyone noticed a bug on Blogger with apostrophes? Its seems to be fine in the body of the text, but not so good in titles; titles of entries, titles of comments, even abbreviated text that shows up in widgets like recent comments. So that's why the title of this post doesn't have an apostrophe in it. and its not capitalized either, but that's a style choice, baby The title of the book is actually Nothing's Sacred, by Lewis Black.

I'm sure you've seen Black, going off on some politician on stage at a comedy club, or in one of his TV specials or appearances. He's the guy with glasses, graying brown hair who looks like he's about to have a stroke if he doesn't calm down. Lewis Black gets excited; with the pointing, and the grimacing, and the teeth gritting. This angst comes through in his writing as well; a review quote on the back cover summed it up: Jon Stewart said Black could even yell in his writing. Its true, you can almost hear him spitting with disdain and incredulity as you read.

What was surprising about the book was the autobiographical structure. I was expecting a book of Black's humor--which I got--but learning about how he grew up, and what made him the man he is was interesting as well as funny.

I read the paperback version which I understand is slightly different from the hardcover in that it contains 'bonus material.' In the new introduction to the introduction, Black seems to be at a loss for what else to write about, and says as much, giving me the impression that the whole book was a bit of a mystery to him. I have this impression that someone (a publicist, an agent, whomever) suggested that he write a book and Black said, Sure! and then didn't know where to start. I guess what I'm saying is: Maybe the memoir theme was a surprise to Black as well.

As anecdotal humor is Lewis Black's forte, his use of an anecdotal chapter is the structure that supports his book. Each chapter is just a few pages long, in which Black relates an anecdote or an observation about the world, especially this country, our politicians, his school masters, his family or the people he grew up with. I laughed both with and at Lewis Black from the time he was old enough to masturbate, until now. in fact, I get the impression he hasn't given up on the self-love

Black may have cobbled this together, like the script to an extra-long HBO special, but it reads funny from beginning to end. I bet the audiobook is even funnier. Black has written three books; you can check them out on his site.

Thanks to Steve for the book loan!

thrones

I said I wasn't going to do it. I told myself over and over: don't read George R. R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series until all the books are published. But I broke down and read A Game of Thrones. Now I'm stuck with everyone else, waiting for the 6th and 7th (reportedly the last two) to be published. According to rumor and based on what Martin has said, the last two could be huge, and may (based on publishing history) be broken into two or more volumes each. Then again, Martin may find that he just can't get it all jammed in there, and have to write some more. sigh

After the dryness of the few most recent books I've read,* I really needed a fun, page-turner, and I got it with A Game of Thrones. Thrones is written from a wandering POV of the many different characters that drive the plot. This story has a richness in the subtle sub-plots, intrigues, politics, wars, history and vague fantastic hints, but is at its base, a character driven narrative.

And the characters are abundant! Each chapter is named for a character and they move the story forward from their unique view of what is happening around them. Innocent, high-minded, sneaking, noble, craven, honorable, infighting, self-aggrandizing, naive, damaged, driven,and just plain nuts are some of the points of view we're treated to as readers, and Martin holds it together very tightly. This was a very fast read for a long(ish) book.**

I haven't seen the HBO series, but I hear tell that it follows along with the book pretty well. There are obviously other books in the saga, and I'm not sure if the television show incorporates storylines from the other books or not.

This story was fun, well written, engaging, lush with detail, with a tangy funk that reminds me that I'm definitely not reading Tolkien. So yeah, I'll go out and get the others, but maybe not right away, and maybe, just maybe, Martin will catch up to me before I find myself going crazy, waiting for the next installment like so many others.

Read this book.

* Really! Scroll down if you haven't checked in in a while. The last bunch of books has been a dryyyy run, baby.

** 808 pages, and another dozen or so pages of appendix listing the various family trees that spawned the many characters in the story.

to the moon

From the Earth to the Moon* is Jules Verne's 1865 novel about America's attempt to send a projectile to the moon. This book isn't as large as some of the other Verne books I've read, and frankly, not as good.

Verne takes the reader on a wonderful journey, spoiler warning it just doesn't go to the moon. "What?" you exclaim, "How can a story called From the Earth to the Moon, not actually include the moon, pray tell?" Yeah, good question.

Jules Verne instead, takes us on a tour of the American Spirit. This travelogue is not a fanciful trip around the world in a balloon, or under the sea with a monomaniacal U-boat captain, but a tour through what Verne believes sets American apart from the rest of the world: its ability to never take no for an answer, and its tireless pursuit of technological excellence. Verne states numerous times, that no nation on earth could overcome the technological and engineering challenges of sending a projectile to the moon, and describes in detail how the Americans do it. Its a flag-waving, back-slapping, kiss-on-the-mouth to American ingenuity and resolve... in 1865!

In fact, the USSR was the first to flyby the moon, on January 2, 1959, with Luna 1. The US didn't accomplish that goal until about two months later with Pioneer 4. The USSR was also first to impact a man-made probe on the moon with Luna 2, in September of the same year. The first lander and orbiter, also USSR with Luna 9 & 10, respectively, in 1966. The US and USSR then trade landers, orbiters, flybys, return probes and impacts until Apollo 8 orbits the moon on a manned mission on December 21, 1968, and then lands a manned mission** on the moon 7 months later, with Apollo 11, on July 16, 1969

For those of you counting, Verne predicted this achievement, and wrote about it rather convincingly, 103 years ahead of time.

This book will tweak your patriotism or your love for America, and scratch that classic, hard-SciFi itch you have, but beyond that, myeh.

* French title: De la Terre à la Lune
** Rest easy in the deepest of the deep; Neil Alden Armstrong

listmania ii

Maybe Eco has a kind of obsessive-compulsiveness? Or maybe he just enjoys lists for lists' sake. Two of the examples used in his essay were excerpts of his own writing, in which he made use of lists to deliver a message he says, is unlike any other type of communication. Umberto Eco delights in a list's ability to capture the perceived infinity of ideas, and the calming, orderly effect of reading them. Indeed, Eco offers prayers in the form of lists of the saints as an example of this power lists can have.

If the perceived infinite can calm, it can also disorient, and this perhaps is the power some lists have, that most intrigues Eco. The Italian title for this book, in fact, is probably more accurately translated for me as 'The Vertigo of Infinity' or 'The Giddiness of the Infinite.'*

From the first chapter of the Italian version:

"Però con questo libro non si va solo alla scoperta di una forma letteraria di rado analizzata, ma si mostra anche come le arti figurative siano capaci di suggerire elenchi infiniti, anche quando la rappresentazione sembra severamente limitata dalla cornice del quadro. Così il lettore troverà in queste pagine una lista di immagini che ci fanno sentire la vertigine dell’illimitato."

And my translation: with a little help from the google

This book not only examines a literary form rarely analyzed, but also shows how the arts are able to suggest infinite lists, even when the representation seems severely limited by the frame of the picture. Thus the reader will find in these pages a list of images that make us feel the vertigo of the unlimited. 

An example of the 'suggestion of the infinite' Eco uses is the Mona Lisa. Leonardo da Vinci chose to portray la Gioconda not in some closed room, but in front of a window or perhaps on a balcony, and the landscape suggests a background that goes on and on. I read only recently that the background on the Mona Lisa may have indeed been larger and has been cut down over time. Compare to the recent restoration of 'La Gioconda' by the Museo Nacional del Prado. This copy of the Mona Lisa has been attributed to da Vinci's atelier, and it looks like it may have been painted in parallel to the original, side-by-side , and nearly strok-by-stroke, but hasn't suffered the same loss over the years. And this image actually shows a window frame, or outlines of columns and sill of a balcony or galleria, which may have been present on the original. wild tangent complete

The book itself is lush with beautiful images and text culled from the greatest works in the last few thousand years, beautifully printed and bound by Rizzoli. The Infinity of Lists may be a little obsessive, and little too rich with examples, but as a companion book to an exhibit, I suppose that makes sense. I have few more Umberto Eco novels on my shelf, but I think they'll stay there for a while while I rest my brain.

* Translation of The Infinity of Lists is by Alastair McEwen. Altho, the Bibliographical References of Translations in the backmatter, includes a note about the translations of the various texts used as examples throughout the book by a person named Alta L. Price.

listopia i

Umberto Eco is one deep-thinking, renaissance man. The Infinity of Lists* is both thought provoking in its depth, and mind numbing in its detail. It's almost obsessive in its inclusion of examples of lists--both written and visual. At the halfway point, I have the distinct impression that one can find lists as an organizing tool for information and thought almost anywhere. Man's need to sort, categorize and list things is so ingrained that we take list-making for granted, and assimilate the information contained in them automatically.

And that's exactly what Eco is pointing out in this richly illustrated and exampled essay. Eco, in fact, has created a list of the different types of lists we use to organize and display information. He's categorizing the categorizers and their categories. One could almost say that this essay is a catalog of categorizing,  categorizers, and their categories. In taking apart, or deconstructing these tools we've developed, he's helping us to understand the underlying mechanics in them; to see them for what they are.

Many of the written examples include excerpts from things I've read, and I was surprised to see the lists contained in them. I don't recall reading such long lists buried in those works, with a few possible exceptions... Jules Verne, I'm lookin' at you.

Eco put this book together as a companion to an exhibit of the same name he helped to organized at the Musée du Louvre, in 2009.

The English translation was done by Alastair McEwen.

More to come! when I finally pound through this book

* Italian title: Vertigine della lista

word origins

duuurr...etymology!

I love etymology, but I'm not too sure that extends to Word Origins* by Anatoly Liberman. Now, a quickie peruse roun' the internet tells me that Anatoly Liberman is not, as I suspected, an English dude, but!, ah the plot thickens my dears, he is, in fact, a native of St. Petersburg, Russia. Okay, okay, I thought I was going crazy there for a bit, because I had the distinct impression that Liberman is an English language fan-boy, big time, but he wasn't speaking American English. His name, and maybe the Oxford Press made me think 'British', but this guys lives and teaches in Minnesota.

Here's a little taste:

"A search for words somehow connected with the word whose origin was being investigated lost its character of a ramble among look-alikes, and a surprising realization came that look-alikes are deceptive"

'Of a ramble,' brother?

Word Origins is a love letter to the English language from a life-long enthusiast. Liberman is quietly amusing and entertaining throughout while he carefully traipses over some rather boring etymological ground, namely; how etymology is done correctly--and how it isn't.

Word Origins traces the history of etymology through the ages, touching on the major advancements -- and setbacks -- in etymological studies. All the while, giving examples of how words and roots can be traced and connected via their 'cognates' in English and in other languages; with examples that have stood the test of time, and those that have proved to be somewhat less than correct wrong.

A very interesting section on 'folk-etymology' and its impact on the language illuminated a lot of  mistakes that have made it into pop culture and haven't ever made it out. Like where the f-word comes from. spoiler: unknown. not some trumped-up acronym for adulterers in the stocks.

Where else are you going to hear gems like this:  Ju-piter is actually a compound word consisting of an old version of god (dieu-) pronounced dyew- as in soldier, and a variant of the word pater, from which we get father. So Jupiter is literally, the father of the gods. 

The problem, my dear man and here's where I address the 'open-letter' portion of my blog to the author himself, like I'm some kind of big ass New York Times editor, and he may actually read this, is that the stories are a bit rambling, and the thoughts slightly disconnected. Many of your passages read like experiments in free association, which can be a little hard to follow. You skip from examples of correct etymologies, to stories of incorrect etymologies, and I don't discover this until you finally tell me, "...myeh, but that was wrong." I'm paraphrasing

So a little slow, but interesting if you love it. It took me a month or so to pound through this one, and I ended up reading three other books at the same time.  and I wouldn't recommend that unless you're Sybil by-the-way.


* Full title: Word Origins ... and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone. 

contact

I remember the late, great astronomer, Carl Sagan from his Cosmos television series based on his book of the same name.* Sagan did for astronomy then, what scientists haven't really able to do successfully for a hundred years or so: bring science to the public in a compelling and accessible way.

Contact also reached the public in a way that many other science writer's work rarely does, in the form of a big budget movie. Contact starred Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey and was re-imagined for the screen by Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan.**

In other words, the book isn't the same as the movie; its substantially different. I'm not sure if its condescending to say how surprised I am that this sci fi novel is as good as it is, written by a man who presumably doesn't have any special training as a writer, or if its okay to feel that way because I'm encouraged to continue my own amateur writing.

Sagan doesn't just tell the story of humankind's first contact with an alien species, but hypothesizes what the actual processes that may take place on earth to deal with such a re-defining event. His experience work with the international science community and the nations that support them--or in some cases forestall them--allows him to build a powerful sub-plot revolving around international cooperation. Another vein that runs through the story is how policy is influenced by powerful religious groups in the face of what could be seen as a difficult development for many religious traditions to assimilate: discovery that there are other civilizations, which may or may not have similar belief systems--contact with which could potentially challenge long standing religious tenets.

There is a lot going on in this story, and Sagan does a masterful job of walking the line in tricky spots, and tying up loose ends like a pro. I really enjoyed this one, but I don't think I'll be reading three books at the same time for a while.

Read this one. Its better than the movie. But you knew that.

* Carl Sagan's book, Cosmos, was recently included in the Library of Congress' Books That Shaped America exhibit, which kicks off their 'Celebration of the Book' event, which will continue over the next few years.

** Druyan and Sagan met while she was the creative director of the NASA Voyager Interstellar Record Project. You remember the gold records strapped to the sides of the Voyager spacecraft right? Who could forget? The thing almost killed us all!

home grown bookmarker

As I'm sure you know, I'm a fan of bookmarks. SO much so, that I've dabbled in making them myself a little bit. In most cases, this means hand drawn, one or two color jobs on card stock, but in this case I made a bookmark for a specific task. The office lending library.

I work in an office where we design library buildings as a large part of our business, and what better way to embrace the democracy of free libraries, then to start your own. We have even discussed ways to open it to the public, as micro libraries become more and more popular.

The way our library works is: you bring in a book or books that you think others might enjoy, jot your name in them and stick them on the shelf. When they've been there for a while without a lot of action, take them home and replace them with some others. I had the idea to add another layer (and convenience) to the process by adding my own bookmark. Not only does it remind the reader whose book it is, it also can help them to remember how long they've had it. you can see in this case, no one wanted to borrow my alan guth book. no date.*

Easy-peasy, right? This marker was created using a graphics program, and then a series of the them were printed on card stock, and then annotated by hand and hand stamped with a couple of my handmade vinyl stamps. These stamps are cut from vinyl erasers. The red one is a personal logo of my Irish-Italian household I like to call the Four-leaf Pepper Pub. The second is another personal logo I use for marking my books; it represents the full moon over snowy mountains and pines.

Want to borrow a book?

* Inflationary Universe was great by-the-way. Its a little out of date now, but the basics of how the early, hot universe expanded really quickly, then cooled and slowed, is still included in most of the universe models.