One of the best historical books I've ever read is Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. I recommend it to everyone I know, and as I'm reading his new book right now, I figured I'd talk today about the book that got me interested in him.
I first noticed it in an airport bookstore and finally picked it up a couple of years later. It was much better than I'd ever imagined. Horwitz traveled through the American South to various places related to the Civil War, and also place important to race relations today. He went to a town in rural Kentucky where a white teenager had been shot and killed by a black teenager after a confrontation over the Confederate flag. He visited a woman in charge of her local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy. He went to an "Afrocentric" high school and a KKK rally. He also traveled with a hardcore Confederate reenactor to museums and historic sites, all in the attempt to learn how the Civil War had impacted modern society.
As a lifelong Northerner, the answers surprised me. I never really thought about the Civil War at all, except when I was studying it. After all, it had little affect on my own family story. I can't claim any ancestors at all who fought in it. The only branch of my family that was even here at the time was up in Maine and had recently crossed the border from Canada. The other three sides would not even arrive in the country until almost fifty years later. So, it surprised me to learn how different things were in the South, at least for some people.
The book alternates between disquieting scenes like the one in Kentucky, where more than one person quoted speaks of the Civil War as though it had happened in his or her lifetime, and scenes in the "New South" that are disquieting for other reasons. Horwitz and his re-enactor pal visit "Manasshole" together, as part of his friend's annual "Civil Wargasm" week-long road trip. While the battlefield itself is preserved, it's ringed by clogged freeways and fast-food joints. Virtually nothing of Civil-War era Atlanta remains: what didn't get burned by Sherman got bulldozed by developers. In fact, in Atlanta, the primary image of the Civil War is Gone With the Wind. Horwitz visits several people who claim to know the whereabouts of "the real Tara" and speaks with someone in tourism who tells him that she repeatedly has to answer questions such as "Where are Rhett and Scarlett buried?" (facepalm!!!) He also visits a city historian, for the record, who states that he worked with Margaret Mitchell while she was writing her book and had assisted her in her meticulous efforts to ensure that everything she wrote was fictional. She combed old city directories to ensure that she didn't accidentally use the name of a real family, and toured the countryside to ensure that all her homes and locations came from her own imagination.
Horwitz also tackles the issue of commemoration: of what is commemorated, how, and why. He visits an interesting Common Council meeting in Richmond, VA, where they are trying to decide whether to put a statue of African-American tennis legend Arthur Ashe on the Confederate-dominated Monument Avenue. The discussion seesaws back and forth, between whites who favor the idea, blacks who think Ashe would be diminished on a "promenade of losers" (as one man calls it), people who thought his statue should be placed in a black neighborhood as a source of inspriation, and others who viewed that as more segregation. He also takes in a ceremony held at Andersonville commemorating the day the prison camp administrator Henry Wirz was hanged for war crimes. The ceremony is held annually by a group that is attempting to clear Wirz's name, at least partially on the grounds that he didn't do anything the North wasn't doing too.
I went to graduate school because I wanted to help engage people in history, and I think this is part of the reason I like this book so much. Horwitz has unearthed a lot of the people who keep history alive, for better or for worse. This book gets at the root of why the study of history is so important, and what it can mean to the individual.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Dude Lit
You know I love chick lit, as sort of a "guilty pleasure." It's one of those things that's just fun, even if you know before you get the book home that the girl will get the guy and the new shoes in the end. I found on Bookchase a post about Esquire magazine's column on "75 Books every Man Should Read." I wondered why it was specific to men, as there are some damn good books on here, but I guess that probably has to do with it being a men's magazine, like "The Ten Money-Saving Tricks Every Woman Should Know" that actually work regardless of your plumbing.
You can find the article here. But I've got the list below. I bolded the ones I've read:
I'm not a guy, but I was surprised to see that I've only read 11 out of the 75 listed. Some of them, like Slaughterhouse Five and Affliction, seem like ones I would have read, too. I wonder about some of their choices, too: The Dharma Bums instead of On the Road? The Crack-Up instead of The Great Gatsby or This Side of Paradise? Did they do that just to be iconoclastic, or did the person who compiled the list really believe that those were better?
I should note that the list isn't ranked, too. They aren't actually trying to say that the Raymond Carver book is better than Huck Finn.But I like lists like these, even when they put me to shame. They always remind me of books I've meant to check out but never have. I've been wanting to read one of the classic Russian novels for a while now, and the list had a couple of good suggestions. A couple of years ago, I read an excellent short story about a young teacher who was doing This Boy's Life with her class, and it sounded like an engaging book. I'd forgotten all about those ideas, but this list helped bring them back to the forefront. It also gave me another idea: trying to do my own list of what I consider essential reading. Maybe tomorrow!
You can find the article here. But I've got the list below. I bolded the ones I've read:
1. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, by Raymond Carver
2. Collected Stories of John Cheever
3. Deliverance, by James Dickey
4. The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck
5. Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy
6. The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. The Known World, by Edward P. Jones
8. The Good War, by Studs Terkel
9. American Pastoral, by Philip Roth
10. A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, by Flannery O’Connor
11. The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien
12. A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter
13. The Call of the Wild, by Jack London
14. Time’s Arrow, by Martin Amis
15. A Sense of Where You Are, by John McPhee
16. Hell’s Angels, by Hunter S. Thompson
17. Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison
18. Dubliners, by James Joyce
19. Rabbit, Run, by John Updike
20. The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain
21. Dog Soldiers, by Robert Stone
22. Winter’s Bone, by Daniel Woodrell
23. Legends of the Fall, by Jim Harrison
24. Under the Volcano, by Malcolm Lowry
25. The Naked and the Dead, by Norman Mailer
26. The Professional, by W.C. Heinz
27. For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway
28. Dispatches, by Michael Herr
29. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
30. Revolutionary Road, by Richard Yates
31. As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner
32. The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara
33. Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut
34. All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren
35. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey
36. Sophie’s Choice, by William Styron
37. A Fan’s Notes, by Frederick Exley
38. Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis
39. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami
40. Master and Commander, by Patrick O’Brian
41. Plainsong, by Kent Haruf
42. A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole
43. Affliction, by Russell Banks
44. This Boy’s Life, by Tobias Wolff
45. Winter’s Tale, by Mark Helprin
46. The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow
47. Women, by Charles Bukowski
48. Going Native, by Stephen Wright
49. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
50. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, by John LeCarré
51. The Crack-Up, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
52. CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, by George Saunders
53. War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
54. The Shining, by Stephen King
55. Winesburg, Ohio, by Sherwood Anderson
56. Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
57. Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
58. Labyrinths, by Jorge Luis Borges
59. The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe
60. The Sportswriter, by Richard Ford
61. American Tabloid, by James Ellroy
62. The Autobiography of Malcolm X, by Alex Haley
63. What It Takes, by Richard Ben Cramer
64. The Continental Op, by Dashiell Hammett
65. The Power and the Glory, by Graham Greene
66. So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell
67. Native Son, by Richard Wright
68. Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, by James Agee and Walker Evans
69. Angle of Repose, by Wallace Stegner
70. The Great Bridge, by David McCullough
71. The Dharma Bums, by Jack Kerouac
72. Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry
73. Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov
74. Underworld, by Don DeLillo
75. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain
I'm not a guy, but I was surprised to see that I've only read 11 out of the 75 listed. Some of them, like Slaughterhouse Five and Affliction, seem like ones I would have read, too. I wonder about some of their choices, too: The Dharma Bums instead of On the Road? The Crack-Up instead of The Great Gatsby or This Side of Paradise? Did they do that just to be iconoclastic, or did the person who compiled the list really believe that those were better?
I should note that the list isn't ranked, too. They aren't actually trying to say that the Raymond Carver book is better than Huck Finn.But I like lists like these, even when they put me to shame. They always remind me of books I've meant to check out but never have. I've been wanting to read one of the classic Russian novels for a while now, and the list had a couple of good suggestions. A couple of years ago, I read an excellent short story about a young teacher who was doing This Boy's Life with her class, and it sounded like an engaging book. I'd forgotten all about those ideas, but this list helped bring them back to the forefront. It also gave me another idea: trying to do my own list of what I consider essential reading. Maybe tomorrow!
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Books of a Feather: Feline Friends
Well, I said I had today's topic worked out and this is it. I didn't want to do it yesterday, because I'd just done the "Books of a Feather", and it's not an interesting feature if I do it constantly, every day.
I have been a cat lover literally since I was old enough to understand what a cat was. My first cat friend lived across the street from me and used to climb on the garage roof to look at me in my crib. Neither of my parents had ever had cats growing up, or had been much interested in having them as adults, but I wanted one so badly they decided to try it out. I definitely converted them, and they still have two cats that they got after my sister and I moved out. My sister has three cats, and she even fosters cats. I have two cats (whom you can visit on their Catster pages).
So, I've always been attracted to books about cats. I have three great ones for today: Cat Stories, by James Herriott; The Cat Who'll Live Forever by Peter Gethers; and My Cat Spit McGee, by Willie Morris.
James Herriott wrote a wonderful series of books about his experiences as a veterinarian in rural England. He started in medicine around the 1930s or 1940s, and retired fifty years after. It was an exciting time in medicine, and probably one of the most moving of his stories was about his first experience of the miracle of the antibiotic drugs, which were still experimental when he decided to try them as a last-ditch effort to save a flock of cattle. Herriott worked primarily with large animals, but was sometimes charged with the care of domestic cats and dogs. Cat Stories culled the best of the cat-related tales from his books and placed them in one volume.
The other two books are more biographical. In fact, I purchased My Cat Spit McGee from the biography section. It tells the tale of Morris's conversion from a lifelong cat-hater to a devoted cat person, after he marries the Cat Woman. Spit McGee was the sole survivor of his litter, born to a young cat mother who couldn't take care of her kittens properly and hid them under the foundation of the house. Spit McGee enjoyed the freedom of an outdoor life in Alabama, although he had some dangerous adventures, including a run-in with a possum and a motorcycle. Spit has a variety of feline companions that cycle through the story, cat ownership being more fluid in Morris's neck of the woods than I'm used to, I guess.
The saddest of all is The Cat Who'll Live Forever. This is the conclusion of a trilogy of books about Norton, the globe-trotting Scottish Fold. As you may have guessed from the foreboding title, Norton does not, in fact, live forever. This is the story of Norton's long illness and Gethers's dedicated effort to care for him, and ultimately, to let him go. This is not as happy a book as the other two I'm highlighting today, but it's beautiful in its own way. Gethers's dedication to Norton's comfort and happiness is inspirational, and it will help any pet owner who has been through the sad process of saying goodbye. I used to post frequently on the Craigslist pet forum and often quoted the advice from Gethers' vet: that when it's time to put your pet to sleep, you'll know.
If you think about it objectively, pet ownership is a strange thing. It's weird to take an animal into your home, when one of the original purposes of homes was to keep animals out. If it's a cat, you've most likely got a box full of excrement and what's basically expensive sand, somewhere right inside. Yet you come to care for them, and love them, and they seemingly love you back, and devote themselves to you more than any person ever would (if you go outside to take out the garbage, is your spouse waiting at the door when you come back in? if you leave your living room and go into the computer room, would your spouse wake up from a dead sleep to follow you in there and go back to sleep by you?). They also seemingly have personalities as distinct as humans (more distinct than some of them). And yet, you know right from the beginning that the pet is not going to survive you and that heartbreak is implicit in the deal. Each of these three books answers, in their own way, the question of why people do it, and what they get back.
I have been a cat lover literally since I was old enough to understand what a cat was. My first cat friend lived across the street from me and used to climb on the garage roof to look at me in my crib. Neither of my parents had ever had cats growing up, or had been much interested in having them as adults, but I wanted one so badly they decided to try it out. I definitely converted them, and they still have two cats that they got after my sister and I moved out. My sister has three cats, and she even fosters cats. I have two cats (whom you can visit on their Catster pages).
So, I've always been attracted to books about cats. I have three great ones for today: Cat Stories, by James Herriott; The Cat Who'll Live Forever by Peter Gethers; and My Cat Spit McGee, by Willie Morris.
James Herriott wrote a wonderful series of books about his experiences as a veterinarian in rural England. He started in medicine around the 1930s or 1940s, and retired fifty years after. It was an exciting time in medicine, and probably one of the most moving of his stories was about his first experience of the miracle of the antibiotic drugs, which were still experimental when he decided to try them as a last-ditch effort to save a flock of cattle. Herriott worked primarily with large animals, but was sometimes charged with the care of domestic cats and dogs. Cat Stories culled the best of the cat-related tales from his books and placed them in one volume.
The other two books are more biographical. In fact, I purchased My Cat Spit McGee from the biography section. It tells the tale of Morris's conversion from a lifelong cat-hater to a devoted cat person, after he marries the Cat Woman. Spit McGee was the sole survivor of his litter, born to a young cat mother who couldn't take care of her kittens properly and hid them under the foundation of the house. Spit McGee enjoyed the freedom of an outdoor life in Alabama, although he had some dangerous adventures, including a run-in with a possum and a motorcycle. Spit has a variety of feline companions that cycle through the story, cat ownership being more fluid in Morris's neck of the woods than I'm used to, I guess.
The saddest of all is The Cat Who'll Live Forever. This is the conclusion of a trilogy of books about Norton, the globe-trotting Scottish Fold. As you may have guessed from the foreboding title, Norton does not, in fact, live forever. This is the story of Norton's long illness and Gethers's dedicated effort to care for him, and ultimately, to let him go. This is not as happy a book as the other two I'm highlighting today, but it's beautiful in its own way. Gethers's dedication to Norton's comfort and happiness is inspirational, and it will help any pet owner who has been through the sad process of saying goodbye. I used to post frequently on the Craigslist pet forum and often quoted the advice from Gethers' vet: that when it's time to put your pet to sleep, you'll know.
If you think about it objectively, pet ownership is a strange thing. It's weird to take an animal into your home, when one of the original purposes of homes was to keep animals out. If it's a cat, you've most likely got a box full of excrement and what's basically expensive sand, somewhere right inside. Yet you come to care for them, and love them, and they seemingly love you back, and devote themselves to you more than any person ever would (if you go outside to take out the garbage, is your spouse waiting at the door when you come back in? if you leave your living room and go into the computer room, would your spouse wake up from a dead sleep to follow you in there and go back to sleep by you?). They also seemingly have personalities as distinct as humans (more distinct than some of them). And yet, you know right from the beginning that the pet is not going to survive you and that heartbreak is implicit in the deal. Each of these three books answers, in their own way, the question of why people do it, and what they get back.
Friday, November 14, 2008
Get Out Of Jail Free
When you're playing Monopoly and you draw one of those cards, you want to hang on to it, and use it at the right time. Today is my right time. Today is the day where I blog about having no idea what to blog about.
I'm just under the wire for today's post, because I really didn't have any good ideas. I have two books kind of half-going, but I don't like to write about what I'm reading until I'm done with it. I already did two of my features and a meme this week. I was hoping there'd be something at NaBloPoMo, but I didn't find any inspiration at all (is it me or are the groups less active this year?) And my real life is quiet right now too: no dramatic house fires, robberies or beginnings of cohabitation like last year. I could write about World of Warcraft, seeing as how the new expansion has just come out, but I don't feel like writing about that either. I was thinking about this post since last night's, and I just don't know what to do. I have a "books of a feather" for tomorrow that I don't want to do today. Just because, doing too many of them feels like cheating. And the comments here have been quiet. I keep thinking of that guy back in May who called me the rudest name in the English language, and all I can think is, "Why didn't he save that for NaBloPoMo? I could've gotten a post out of that?"
So I guess I'm appealing to you guys once again. Got any ideas for me? I have tomorrow covered, but will I be right back here Sunday night? I hope not.
I'm just under the wire for today's post, because I really didn't have any good ideas. I have two books kind of half-going, but I don't like to write about what I'm reading until I'm done with it. I already did two of my features and a meme this week. I was hoping there'd be something at NaBloPoMo, but I didn't find any inspiration at all (is it me or are the groups less active this year?) And my real life is quiet right now too: no dramatic house fires, robberies or beginnings of cohabitation like last year. I could write about World of Warcraft, seeing as how the new expansion has just come out, but I don't feel like writing about that either. I was thinking about this post since last night's, and I just don't know what to do. I have a "books of a feather" for tomorrow that I don't want to do today. Just because, doing too many of them feels like cheating. And the comments here have been quiet. I keep thinking of that guy back in May who called me the rudest name in the English language, and all I can think is, "Why didn't he save that for NaBloPoMo? I could've gotten a post out of that?"
So I guess I'm appealing to you guys once again. Got any ideas for me? I have tomorrow covered, but will I be right back here Sunday night? I hope not.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Shop Smart, Shop Book-Smart: Booking Through Thursday
The question this week:
Given the title of this blog, it's pretty obvious that I'm a big public library fan. They're so wonderful, I can barely believe they exist: a place where you can go and stay as long as you like, and in exchange for nothing more than a promise that you'll bring them back, take away all the books you can carry.
But sometimes I buy. I have a lot of books, actually. Whenever a favorite author comes out with a new book, that's usually a guaranteed purchase. It does happen, on occasion, that there's a book I really want to read but the library just doesn't have. I don't think any of Jen Lancaster's books are available in my library system, so I bought them. There's also the allure of a bargain: if I see a book that had interested me in the remainder section for $4, I'll usually pick it up.
Having books around makes me feel good. My parents used to tease me that I had "security books" instead of a security blanket. I rarely left the house without when when I was growing up, because you just never know. Even now, I usually bring a book when I'm going to someplace like the doctor or the car mechanic. It sucks to have to sit there and stare into space or read ten-year-old magazines, so I always bring a book. And in some situations, it's better to carry around a book that you own, like when you go to the beach, or if you want to take a bath. Owning books also guarantees you'll never be without something good to read, kind of like keeping a supply of canned goods in case there's a blizzard. If something happens and you can't get to the library, you don't want to get caught out.
Why Buy? November 13, 2008
I’ve asked, in the past, about whether you more often buy your books, or get them from libraries. What I want to know today, is, WHY BUY?
Even if you are a die-hard fan of the public library system, I’m betting you have at least ONE permanent resident of your bookshelves in your house. I’m betting that no real book-lover can go through life without owning at least one book. So … why that one? What made you buy the books that you actually own, even though your usual preference is to borrow and return them?
If you usually buy your books, tell me why. Why buy instead of borrow? Why shell out your hard-earned dollars for something you could get for free?
Given the title of this blog, it's pretty obvious that I'm a big public library fan. They're so wonderful, I can barely believe they exist: a place where you can go and stay as long as you like, and in exchange for nothing more than a promise that you'll bring them back, take away all the books you can carry.
But sometimes I buy. I have a lot of books, actually. Whenever a favorite author comes out with a new book, that's usually a guaranteed purchase. It does happen, on occasion, that there's a book I really want to read but the library just doesn't have. I don't think any of Jen Lancaster's books are available in my library system, so I bought them. There's also the allure of a bargain: if I see a book that had interested me in the remainder section for $4, I'll usually pick it up.
Having books around makes me feel good. My parents used to tease me that I had "security books" instead of a security blanket. I rarely left the house without when when I was growing up, because you just never know. Even now, I usually bring a book when I'm going to someplace like the doctor or the car mechanic. It sucks to have to sit there and stare into space or read ten-year-old magazines, so I always bring a book. And in some situations, it's better to carry around a book that you own, like when you go to the beach, or if you want to take a bath. Owning books also guarantees you'll never be without something good to read, kind of like keeping a supply of canned goods in case there's a blizzard. If something happens and you can't get to the library, you don't want to get caught out.
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Showing George Saunders Some Love
It's funny how people can influence your lives, and how the influence spreads out like ripples in a pond and continues to affect you long after you barely think of that person. In college, I had one class with Dr. Janet Groth, Magazine Article Writing. I came to like and respect her a lot and got to know her a bit after college. But she influenced my intellectual life a great deal by requiring us all to get a semester-long subscription to The New Yorker. It's been over ten years since I took her class, and in that time, I've subscribed to it on and off, but mostly on. I look forward to its arrival every week, and I bet you can guess my favorite part! It's the short story.
That was where I first heard of George Saunders. He kind of rose from being an occasional fiction submitter to writing the "Shouts and Murmurs" more regularly. I thought that was too bad, because I don't really like "Shouts and Murmurs" much, but loved his short stories. I always read them.
Saunders is excellent in finding the absurd in modern life. Sometimes, like in his novella "Bounty," he stretches that talent into the near future. Increasingly and alarmingly, he doesn't have to. I think of him every time I drive on the 33, with its huge billboards reading "Get Joint Replacement Surgery" and "The Best Stroke Care Is At Mercy." That's right out of one of his stories.
His stuff has taken on a more political bent as of late, but my favorites are the ones with ordinary people struggling to find humanity in a corporatized, bland world. The one about the professional caveman re-enactor at a failing theme park whose job is threatened by the corporate drones because of his reluctance to violate his moral code by ratting out a co-worker ("Pastoralia"). The one about the teenaged couple with brain implants, raised by a corporation to be product testers, who risk their consciousness for a chance at independent life ("Jon"). Even the one about the grandfather who makes the decision to give in to corporate coersion to give his grandson a shot at freedom of expression ("My Flamboyant Grandson").
When corporate repression isn't the theme, societal repression often is. The characters in "Winky" and "Sea Oak" had the deck stacked against them from the beginning: raised in poverty, with no real models for any type of success, and are repeating the cycle as adults. But there's a hopefulness and humanity to all of his characters. Most of them are trapped by circumstance: the narrator of "Pastoralia" has a special-needs child, and we get the impression that his caveman job was the best one he could find to keep a roof over his family's head, even if he never gets to sleep under it himself. Neil, of "Winky," has his bizarre, born-again sister permanently ensconsed in his house. And the narrator of "Sea Oak" lives in the projects with his sister, his cousin, their babies and his great-aunt, and supports them all by working as a male stripper. But they don't give up. They fight back against a repressive social structure and a bland corporatized landscape the best way they know how: by being themselves, taking joy in the little things, and moving forward inch by inch.
I love George Saunders because he can be both optimistic and cynical enough for these strange times in which we live, and I believe that literary history will judge him as one of the major voices of this era.
That was where I first heard of George Saunders. He kind of rose from being an occasional fiction submitter to writing the "Shouts and Murmurs" more regularly. I thought that was too bad, because I don't really like "Shouts and Murmurs" much, but loved his short stories. I always read them.
Saunders is excellent in finding the absurd in modern life. Sometimes, like in his novella "Bounty," he stretches that talent into the near future. Increasingly and alarmingly, he doesn't have to. I think of him every time I drive on the 33, with its huge billboards reading "Get Joint Replacement Surgery" and "The Best Stroke Care Is At Mercy." That's right out of one of his stories.
His stuff has taken on a more political bent as of late, but my favorites are the ones with ordinary people struggling to find humanity in a corporatized, bland world. The one about the professional caveman re-enactor at a failing theme park whose job is threatened by the corporate drones because of his reluctance to violate his moral code by ratting out a co-worker ("Pastoralia"). The one about the teenaged couple with brain implants, raised by a corporation to be product testers, who risk their consciousness for a chance at independent life ("Jon"). Even the one about the grandfather who makes the decision to give in to corporate coersion to give his grandson a shot at freedom of expression ("My Flamboyant Grandson").
When corporate repression isn't the theme, societal repression often is. The characters in "Winky" and "Sea Oak" had the deck stacked against them from the beginning: raised in poverty, with no real models for any type of success, and are repeating the cycle as adults. But there's a hopefulness and humanity to all of his characters. Most of them are trapped by circumstance: the narrator of "Pastoralia" has a special-needs child, and we get the impression that his caveman job was the best one he could find to keep a roof over his family's head, even if he never gets to sleep under it himself. Neil, of "Winky," has his bizarre, born-again sister permanently ensconsed in his house. And the narrator of "Sea Oak" lives in the projects with his sister, his cousin, their babies and his great-aunt, and supports them all by working as a male stripper. But they don't give up. They fight back against a repressive social structure and a bland corporatized landscape the best way they know how: by being themselves, taking joy in the little things, and moving forward inch by inch.
I love George Saunders because he can be both optimistic and cynical enough for these strange times in which we live, and I believe that literary history will judge him as one of the major voices of this era.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Celebrate Indie Bookstores, Support Your Community
I love visiting independent bookstores. I was nearby one of the major ones in my area yesterday, and was already thinking about my daily blog post, so I stopped in for help.
Going to an independent bookstore always makes me think things. Barnes and Noble and Borders may be nicer inside, and have the advantage of offering coffee, but they're also pretty sterile. If you've been inside one, you've pretty much seen them all, from New York to California and everywhere in between. My local bookstore, Talking Leaves, definitely isn't like that. They have posters on the walls for local events. They carry more free newspapers than I knew existed (we have a Marxist paper here, who knew?). The walls and counter spaces are festooned with political cartoons about freedom of speech, quotes urging the customers to fight against homogenization and the repression of liberty, and interesting photographs of the city.
The two college-aged women working there were talking and laughing and listening to Hole's Live Through This album as they cut open boxes of books. I used to listen to that same album all the time when I was in college, but it belonged to my friend Karen, and I haven't heard it since then, so it made me feel good to hear them playing it and enjoying it. The only other customer was a college-professor type straight out of Central Casting, tweed jacket with elbow patches and everything. In the middle of the store was a table of books about George Bush marked 40% off. I'm also a member of Talking Leaves, so I scored Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's Bushwhacked for seven dollars and change. I wanted to stay longer, but they were getting ready to close, so I left.
Today, over on Bookchase, I found this post, about a very well-known independent bookstore in South Carolina that was forced to close its doors. It's a sad story and it's happening all too often. Around here, businesses are fighting back against Miracle Mile with a Buffalo First initiative. They're having an organized shopping event, and offering a coupon book for locally owned stores. Even if your city doesn't have such an organized movement, it's important to remember to take a little extra time and spend a little extra money at a locally owned business. They offer different products, better service, and an actual experience.
I find it especially nice at Christmas time. It's much less stressful than battling thousands of irritated shoppers in the big-box stores, and then battling them again on the drive home. It's more fun than cruising to some internet site and point-clicking your way to a gift that you pray arrives on time, in one piece, as ordered. The staff is usually less harried because they're not dealing with thousands of angry people a day while wondering what will become of their jobs on January 2nd. So I join Sam Houston in encouraging you to support your local independent bookstore, and other local retailers -- or lose them.
Going to an independent bookstore always makes me think things. Barnes and Noble and Borders may be nicer inside, and have the advantage of offering coffee, but they're also pretty sterile. If you've been inside one, you've pretty much seen them all, from New York to California and everywhere in between. My local bookstore, Talking Leaves, definitely isn't like that. They have posters on the walls for local events. They carry more free newspapers than I knew existed (we have a Marxist paper here, who knew?). The walls and counter spaces are festooned with political cartoons about freedom of speech, quotes urging the customers to fight against homogenization and the repression of liberty, and interesting photographs of the city.
The two college-aged women working there were talking and laughing and listening to Hole's Live Through This album as they cut open boxes of books. I used to listen to that same album all the time when I was in college, but it belonged to my friend Karen, and I haven't heard it since then, so it made me feel good to hear them playing it and enjoying it. The only other customer was a college-professor type straight out of Central Casting, tweed jacket with elbow patches and everything. In the middle of the store was a table of books about George Bush marked 40% off. I'm also a member of Talking Leaves, so I scored Molly Ivins and Lou Dubose's Bushwhacked for seven dollars and change. I wanted to stay longer, but they were getting ready to close, so I left.
Today, over on Bookchase, I found this post, about a very well-known independent bookstore in South Carolina that was forced to close its doors. It's a sad story and it's happening all too often. Around here, businesses are fighting back against Miracle Mile with a Buffalo First initiative. They're having an organized shopping event, and offering a coupon book for locally owned stores. Even if your city doesn't have such an organized movement, it's important to remember to take a little extra time and spend a little extra money at a locally owned business. They offer different products, better service, and an actual experience.
I find it especially nice at Christmas time. It's much less stressful than battling thousands of irritated shoppers in the big-box stores, and then battling them again on the drive home. It's more fun than cruising to some internet site and point-clicking your way to a gift that you pray arrives on time, in one piece, as ordered. The staff is usually less harried because they're not dealing with thousands of angry people a day while wondering what will become of their jobs on January 2nd. So I join Sam Houston in encouraging you to support your local independent bookstore, and other local retailers -- or lose them.
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