Nona Caspers again. 2008!

Stacey D'erasmo in a Black Hole with a bunch of galleys.

I had a dream last night in which I am walking down a city block and about ten kittens are running towards me and what do I do? what do I do in this dreamy dream? I TURN AROUND AND WALK IN THE OTHER DIRECTION My evil, silly dream-self walks away from a bunch of eager kittens. gah.

1. Am currently reading Stacey D'erasmo's forthcoming novel with the unfortunate title The Sky Below. It's about a gay, Gabriel, and his best friend Sarah and their journey through college in Arizona to their life in NYC. The writing is kind of shallow and the time span so far (I'm halfway through) is so vast it doesn't allow much for exploration. There are some very lovely scenes from Gabe's childhood in Maine and swamp adventures with his sister in Florida, though. It came to mind that this book could be about my friendship with certain other bookseller whose name begins with a J and ends with an N, you know because he's of that gay persuasion and my name is Sarah, but then there's a situation with a platonic bath and it pretty much all went out the window. However, after sharing info with J----N on the plot development, I'm relatively certain that "the platonic bath" will remain a staple insult/inappropriate proposition for the indefinite future.

2. Also, on the current reading list is Black Hole by Charles Burns. Love it/can't read it before bed or all dreams become nightmares in which people have tails and these tails break off at the tip with an unsettling cracking noise. Godsave loves the drawings of the insides of the various apartments, also Burns' ability to portray kids smoking reefer in a real way. I like how he draws water and relating to the teenage girl who goes with the wrong guys and ends up sleeping in a tent in the woods. The depth of setting is the black hole. Walked down to the lake with Godsave and a thermos of saucy hot chocolate last night. I think this adventure was partly inspired by this novel and contained a grain of anticipation for running into some kids with "the bug" along the spookedy ravine trail.

3. Don't Cry by Mary Gaitskill. I really enjoy these stories, but much like the Miranda July, it is difficult to read many in succession, at one time, for it leads to a bleeding together of plot and character. Also, her tendency to write dryly about sex and deviancy, is something to be taken in small doses and generally a style I disdain.

4. Current galley waiting list:
One DOA One on the Way by Mary Robison
Book of Clouds (title already one strike against it) by Chloe Aridjis
Invite by Glen Pourciau
the Art of the Commonplace: the Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry
not a galley but at the top of the pile is Starman: Night and Day.

Im gonna go make some bacon pancakes now.

diggers digging, fingers typing, pages turning, noun verb, etc.

by sarah marine


I'm sitting in my library contemplating silence whilst diggers and dumptrucks do their thing in the parking lot next door. Ah, construction. It makes for a very unfriendly reading environment. Therefore, you get a blogpost about what I'm thinking, which is quite lucky- because I know it's what you live for.

The past couple days have been those lovely Wisconsin ones involving the harshest transition from 80 degree days to 50 degree days. Thankfully, I LOVE WINTER...and, thankfully, nothing says winter like Ander Monson. However with the season still much too far away from warranting Other Electricities, I picked up assorted fire events by David Means. It is the perfect foreword to its Monson Michigan companion (who I guess is teaching in Arizona now, which boggles the mind).



Means' description: "the wet mulch stench of the forest floor and the vast emptiness that the Upper Peninsula offers, that stony wilderness scratching the back of the of the greatest freshwater body in the world, a lake deep enough to swallow whole freighters..." geez. Why anyone would want to live anywhere but the glorious midwest is beyond me. It's beyond.

If I could have dinner with any five writers, living or dead, writers whose conversations could veer from the personality of freight trains, to various sounds of walking on snow, to the year-round cold of the Great Lakes it would be these:


1. Richard Hugo
2. David Means
3. Ander Monson
4. John Ashbery
5. Mike Balisle
*6. Bayard Godsave, of course.

Together with Ashbery's April Galleons and Frank Miller's Daredevil series, I have been very very pleased with current literary companions. Thinking about the future, cant wait for new Sarah Vowell and Chris Ware! Have also been obsessively checking iPage and IBID and everywhere for The Art of Recklessness, which is supposedly a prose collection by Dean Young that was scheduled to come out this year- I mean, literally mentioned in the same breath as Primitive Mentor(January 2008).

PS. IF YOU HAVENT REGISTERED TO VOTE OR NEED TO CHANGE YOUR ADDRESS OR DESIRE ANY KINDS OF INFORMATION REGARDING THE ACT AND ART OF VOTING, THE OBAMA-LAMAS HAVE MOVED IN NEXT DOOR THE DOWNER SCHWARTZ LOCATION!

exploits and adventures

I was so moved by my own words and by the fine position which I had taken up, that my voice broke, and I could hardly refrain from tears.

A more fitting introductory quote to this post could not be provided by any other than the legendary Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who happens to be the subject of the post. This excerpt is from "The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard," my most recent literary obsession, as well as any other italicized passages herein.

We all know Doyle most famously for his tales of Sherlock Holmes - but it was for his other, lesser known stories, which he hoped to be remembered. Doyle was an adamant fan of writing historical fiction, a passion exacted through his stories of Brigadier Etienne Gerard and also with "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel" - related novels detailing the adventures of Sir Nigel Loring, commander of The White Company, a band of archers who fought during the Hundred Years' War. When I read "The White Company" a few years ago I became quickly enthralled by it's mastery and beauty in describing the chivalrous acts of the fictional band, and the book (firmly seated in my personal list of the top 5 best novels, ever) gladly introduced me to Doyle, who has since become one of my favorite authors. But enough about the Company, we are gathered here today to praise Etienne!

"Gerard," He [Napoleon] cried, "you are a marvel!" I did not wish to contradict him, and it brought a flush of joy upon my cheeks to know that he had done me justice at last.

This book (or rather two, originally published separately as "The Exploits..." and "The Adventures...") is certainly one of the greatest treasures the NYRB has seen fit to republish. There are 18 short stories in all that preserve Gerard's exploits, each one a satirical masterpiece commenting not only on the British view of the French at the time, but on the system of British attitudes (now seen through the eyes of a frenchman). It can certainly be praised along side such great satires as "Gulliver's Travels" and "Player Piano".

Gerard portrays himself as gallant hero, fierce fighter, amorous lover, brave commander and loyal servant of his hero and master, Napoleon Bonaparte - amazingly, each of these assertions are completely true. What makes Etienne a comic figure is his bearing and adamant (and repetitive) declaration of these traits.

As an officer, I have always been ready to sacrifice myself for my men, though the Emperor would not have thanked me for it, for he had many men, but only one - well, calvary leaders of the first class are rare.

~

He was nervous and ill at ease, but my bearing seemed to reassure him. It is good to be in contact with brave men.

Despite his faults, Gerard does show himself to be a first class swordsman and a man of great bravery in service of his Emperor - the combination of these conditions create a truly memorable and thoroughly enjoyable comic character. He is apparently a forerunner to the comic/adventurer figures we can see in entertainment today. "Exploits and Adventures" pulls you in and keeps you anchored until it has been fully consumed, Doyle's amazing ingenuity with the structure of the short story is rarely matched. He is a true master of adventure writing.

So, read it - I dare you not to fall in love.

Never have I had so delightful conversation. Most women make the mistake of talking rather too much about their own affairs, but this one listened to my tales just as you are listening now, ever asking for more and more and more.

Now if only someone would jump on the ball and see fit to make "The White Company" and "Sir Nigel" widely available once more, I could rest happy.

beautiful weather

Yesterday's Weather
by Anne Enright
Grove Press, $24
September 2008

To begin with, I can’t write about this incredible volume of stories without mentioning that I was unsure whether I could appreciate Anne Enright’s writing style upon my first reading of the Man Booker Prize winner, The Gathering. But I underestimated her understated, slippery prose. Upon the second reading, I realized that a full appreciation only awaits those who examine the sinuous sentences crafted and cleverly placed for the discerning reader to discover. The themes and ideas, expressed in silkily, playfully realistic phrasings, then fully come to light and dance across your consciousness.



In light of this, a reading of the Irish author’s new offering Yesterday’s Weather was approached with this knowledge in mind. To my delight, the stories produced the same pleasures of last year’s prize winner, only more so.

Most of the stories are twelve pages in length or less. Two excellent consequences result from this brevity. The highly imaginative tales, almost all of which have female narrators, have Ms. Enright’s characteristic style, but honed to perfection, in which not a word is wasted. Secondly, they have the classically longed-for “I want to know more” factor, which I associate with other noted (yes, Irish) modern short-story writers such as William Trevor and John McGahern. Comparison with Trevor also is relevant in the deeply humane delineation of life’s absurdities and with McGahern in the shedding of a highly realistic light on relationships, especially familial ones.

I have a few favorites, called favorites partly because they reminded me of things that I already knew, but had somewhat forgotten.

The first is “Honey”, about Catherine, a woman trying to psyche herself up to have sex with a known womanizer (not her husband) while coping with the death of her mother.
“Little Sister” is an elegiac told by a young woman whose sister, Serena, is leading their family through a harrowing, prolonged bout with anorexia.

The story “Yesterday’s Weather” is told, at turns, in melancholic and hilarious fashion by Hazel, relating the everyday painful realities of trying to manage an infant and a marriage while saddled with an often clueless husband.

As mentioned by the author in her introduction, the stories are presented in reverse chronological order, the earliest being published in 1989, and she likes the idea of seeing herself “getting younger… as the pages turn.” Ms. Enright wants to think of them as “a gift…presented not just to the reader, but also to the future – in my case, to an old woman called Anne Enright, who will read this too, with a bit of luck, and laugh.”

This great collection truly is a gift, and I plan on savoring it again in the very near future.