To Show and To Tell

First of all, some sad news. Those of you who have been following this blog for a while will know about Muttboy, our dog. Sadly, his health declined in the last year, and we decided at the end of May that the end had come. Fortunately, he had a good end with what we think and hope was a minimum of suffering. We are missing him greatly, though. Even with a new baby around, the house still feels too quiet. He is greatly missed.

Cormac is doing well. At nearly five months, he now rolls over in both directions, although getting from front to back (which I thought was supposed to be the easier direction) only happens as an accident now and then. What he does now is roll over from back to front, struggle to roll onto his front again, fail, and then fuss until we turn him over ourselves. Then he repeats the whole process.

As for reading, my reading pace has slowed considerably in the last few months as I’ve gotten back to work. It turns out that it’s work that keeps me from reading as much as I’d like and not the presence of a new baby. Although taking care of a brand new baby was difficult in the early months, it still left me with plenty of time to read — especially in the late night hours waiting for the baby to fall back asleep. I’m very grateful that I no longer spend my night hours that way, and I’m also grateful to be back at work (teaching summer classes at the moment), but now I’m squeezing reading into one or two hours at most in the evening. But that’s okay. Having a baby has confirmed what I already knew about myself: I am in no way whatsoever cut out to be a stay-at-home parent, and I should never, ever, ever attempt it. Thank goodness for Hobgoblin and daycare and working from home.

One of my favorite books from the last couple months is Phillip Lopate’s To Show and To Tell: The Craft of Literary Nonfiction. I really loved this book, and I think it’s essential for anyone who wants to write or who likes to read literary nonfiction. He makes the argument that literary nonfiction doesn’t need to aspire to be like fiction, which is apparently something some people believe; writers in the genre should take full advantage of the opportunities it offers to “tell” as well as to “show,” to deal directly with consciousness and ideas rather than focus solely on the art of storytelling. I agree 100%. I like my literary nonfiction, and even my fiction, to tell me things, as a person talking to me might.

I also admired Lopate’s judicious use of examples to make his points. Sometimes books of this type get a little too detailed with close reading of examples for my taste. I hasten to add that theories of literature stand or fall based on the examples used to back them up and close readings are valuable and important, particularly in books of a more academic nature. But when I read how-to books like Lopate’s, I’m more interested in theories than I am in close readings of particular books, and Lopate gets the balance just right. He also has a wonderful suggested reading list in the back of the book that would keep any nonfiction reader happily busy for a long time.

I’m not entirely sure if Lopate’s taste in nonfiction mirrors my own or if it helped create my own; I discovered literary nonfiction through Lopate’s anthology The Art of the Personal Essay and his introduction to that book is another crucial work of criticism on the genre. I suspect I find myself agreeing vehemently with everything Lopate says in his recent book because I’ve absorbed his aesthetic over the years, whether I’ve been aware of it or not.

At any rate: highly recommended.

The Handsell plus baby pictures

Have you heard of The Handsell, run by Ron Hogan? You list three to five books you like, and Ron and a guest — an author or a bookseller — will offer a recommendation based on your list. You enter your list of books here. A week or so ago, I entered my list, and today, this video appeared with my recommendations. Kind of fun!

I’m happy with the recommendations, although I suspect the recommendation Ron’s guest made — James Salter’s All That Is — wasn’t based on my list but was just a book he happens to like a lot. But still, I’ve been meaning to read Salter for a while now and haven’t gotten to it yet. I may start with A Sport and a Pastime, though, which is what I have on hand. Ron’s recommendation is more appropriate to my list — Iain Sinclair’s Ghost Milk: Recent Adventures Among the Future Ruins of London on the Eve of the Olympics. Sinclair is someone I’ve been aware of for a while but haven’t read yet. Ron’s description sounds perfect: the book is a mix of memoir, history, walking tour, and discussions of the city. It’s exactly what I’m looking for — unclassifiable, voice-driven nonfiction.

I can’t post these days without a baby picture or two, so here they are, first, a picture that makes clear what Cormac thought of his vaccinations yesterday:

And then a happier picture, with Muttboy in the background:

Stalking the Essay

Here’s a reason I’m a fan of Twitter: without it I wouldn’t have found out about a one-day conference at Columbia called “Stalking the Essay.” (Many thanks to Michele Filgate for mentioning it.) It was too tempting to pass up, so although I couldn’t get away for an entire day, I made it to the two afternoon sessions. They were fabulous. The entire day was organized by Phillip Lopate, one of my heroes as editor of the anthology The Art of the Personal Essay, so it was a delight to get to see him. And then I got to see three other writers I’m fond of: Vivian Gornick, whose The Situation and the Story I’ve read; Colm Toibin, author of The Master, which I loved, and of Brooklyn which I hope to read soon; and David Shields, whose book Reality Hunger I’ve enjoyed criticizing and arguing with but from which I’ve gotten a ton of wonderful book recommendations. I also was introduced to some writers I haven’t read yet but hope to at some point: Patricia Hampl, Margo Jefferson, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Geoffrey O’Brien.

The first session was on “Criticism and the Essay,” and it dealt with boundaries among genres, for example, the book review versus the review essay, i.e., moving beyond the book itself to the broader context in which a book sits, or criticism, which implies an expert pronouncing judgment on a subject, versus the essay, which leaves room for not knowing, for lacking expertise. They talked about the challenge of writing what one wants to write while at the same time meeting the needs of a particular publication and a particular audience. They also talked about moving from writing polemically, i.e. letting a particular political point of view dominate one’s writing, toward writing essayistically, i.e. letting the subject rather than the point of view lead the piece.

The second session was on “The Personal and Impersonal Essay,” and the speakers in this part each gave a talk that was partly autobiographical, partly about how they negotiate the personal in their essay writing. Colm Toibin talked about how uncomfortable he is writing personally, but that he finds a way to write about himself indirectly, through the subjects that he chooses, which often end up (often unexpectedly) relating in some fashion to his personal experiences. Patricia Hampl spoke about what it is like to write autobiographically when, as she put it, nothing has ever happened to her. That turned out not to be true, of course. David Shields did a lot of what he does best: recommending great books and arguing for their greatness.

Perhaps the best part of the day came at the end when I got Shields and Lopate to sign books for me. There wasn’t a formal book signing, but all the speakers were milling around at the front of the lecture hall and looked approachable, so I got over my reluctance to talk to intimidating and famous (to me) strangers, and got their signatures. I did it without, I think, saying anything stupid.

So yay to Columbia for organizing an awesome event, and yay to Twitter for making it easier to publicize awesome events. I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it to this one, but the next event (discovered on Twitter) that I’ve got my eye on is at Housing Works bookstore: “A Discussion of Women and Criticism” with Laura Miller and others.

I’ll go to this event if I can manage to tear myself away from this charming little guy:

Updates

First of all, a baby picture:

Cormac is almost two months now and is doing well. He’s even letting me get some sleep now and then. Good boy!

He’s also left me with a surprising amount of time to read, or perhaps I have that time because I haven’t yet gone back to work. That happens next week. So far this year I’ve read 30 books, which is a lot for me. A good number of them I read before Cormac was born, but I’ve been reading steadily ever since. I read while he eats, or while Hobgoblin is watching him, or while he hangs out in the swing, and now and then I read while he naps, although he doesn’t nap much, or at least not regularly. I don’t think my reading has changed much since Cormac was born. Perhaps I’ve read a few more mysteries and lighter, easier reads than usual, but not a significantly larger number. The main reason for this, I think, is that while I’m tired a lot of the time, I’m not as exhausted as I thought I would be, and I’m getting more sleep most nights than I thought I would. Hobgoblin is to thank for this: he does a lot of the work and lets me sleep in many mornings. I haven’t slept straight through the night since the night before Cormac was born, but that doesn’t matter so much when the total number of hours I sleep is high enough.

I can’t write, even briefly, about every book I’ve read, so I won’t try. But here are some highlights:

• Sven Birkerts’s The Art of Time in Memoir. This is a great study of structure in memoir, how the events of a life are organized into a meaningful, coherent narrative. It struck me as a good introduction to the genre, with in-depth discussions of many examples, but also a good book to read for anyone who is considering writing a memoir.
• Justin Torres’s We the Animals. This short novel/novella describes scenes and stories from the life of a family, told from the perspective of one of three young boys. It’s beautifully written and the voice/perspective is done extremely well. I loved it.
• Maria Semple’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette. This is a hugely entertaining comic novel. The story is told largely through emails, letters, and other types of documents, which adds to the fun. It’s about an eccentric family in Seattle. The main characters are very well-drawn and the social satire is amusing.
• Mark Doty’s Heaven’s Coast. I read this memoir after reading and loving his later book Dog Years. Heaven’s Coast tells the story of the death of Doty’s lover from AIDS. It’s a very moving, beautiful book. I think Dog Years is better, though; it’s shorter, sharper, and more focused. But still, I find Doty’s voice and authorial presence in both books warm and wise.
• Meghan Daum’s My Misspent Youth. This is an essay collection from the 1990s; many of the essays are about money, class, New York City, and finding one’s identity and place in the literary world. The title essay is great in its blunt discussion of money, giving numbers in a way that most people avoid. Daum’s writing is light and humorous and at the same time perceptive.
• Nick Hornby’s Housekeeping Versus the Dirt. These essays are addictive. I don’t share Hornby’s taste in reading material very often, and I sometimes disagree with his ideas about what’s valuable in literature, but he’s such a fun writer about books that I read him with great enjoyment anyway.
• Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia. I got this book through the LibraryThing Early Reviewers program, and here’s the review I wrote for them: “I very much enjoyed this book; it’s a good story with interesting characters, and a light style that’s entertaining and readable. It’s sort of a parody of self-help books, and that conceit works well. The author follows the life of his main character pretending that it’s an illustration of how to become rich. But this is really a way to tell what is a traditional story of a man’s life. The self-help element is used partly to consider what a “self” really is and also as a way to say something about the state of Asia today. I can’t say it goes very deeply into these topics, but it handles them with a enjoyably light touch.”

There are more books I’ve read, more good ones too, but for now it’s time to return to reading.

What’s keeping me busy

Cormac is doing great and even letting me sleep on occasion. I’m managing to read a few books, although getting to my laptop to blog is a challenge. Maybe someday soon!

Baby!

Little Cormac Robert was born on Wednesday, January 23rd, at 7:47 pm. He was 6 pounds, 12 ounces, 19.5 inches. He’s doing great, as am I. Isn’t he a little darling?

Updates: Recently read and 38 weeks

I’m still here, waiting, sometimes patiently, sometimes not, for the baby to arrive. I’m not due for two more weeks, but I’m far enough along that it could possibly be any day now. I’m excited, but I also spend my time in a little bit of a haze: I read some, I sleep a lot, I take walks now and then, I panic about whether I’m ready and reorganize the baby’s clothes once again. I’m watching Hobgoblin and other teacher friends return to school after winter break, and it feels strange not to be working on my own syllabi.

So here are some very brief thoughts about what I’ve been reading. I’d love to write longer reviews … except that’s a lie, because I’m feeling lazy and wouldn’t really love it. Brief thoughts are all I have ambition and energy for.

• Barbara Comyns’s Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. I put this on my list of my best books of 2012, but I wanted to mention it again here, as I read it right at the year’s end. What a fabulous book! Comyns has a wonderful style and creates a marvelously strange atmosphere. It reminded me of Shirley Jackson, although Comyns is less gothic. I’m looking forward to reading her other books and now have The Vet’s Daughter on its way here.
• Megan Abbott’s Dare Me. I listened to this one on audio and liked it. It’s about a group of high school girls on a cheer leading squad and a new coach who comes in and transforms their lives. The book is forthright about the combination of vulnerability and cruelty, especially the cruelty, of young women at this age, which I admired, but I loved the depiction of female athleticism and what it means to the characters to train hard and transform their bodies for competition.
• Lauren Groff’s Arcadia. This was a very absorbing read and very well-written. It’s about a commune in upstate New York and tells the story of Bit who spends his childhood there. It’s more accurate to say that the book is about Bit himself, because it follows him after he grows up and  leaves Arcadia, but, unsurprisingly, Arcadia haunts his entire life. The novel is well-written, Bit is an appealing character, and the ideas the novel explores about utopian societies are interesting.
• Jamaica Kincaid’s Annie John. I approached this book as a novel, so I was surprised to see Sven Birkerts mention it as a memoir in his book on the subject. Perhaps the book combines elements of both genres. At any rate, it’s a very good book. It’s a coming-of-age story and focuses on Annie’s relationship with her mother, first with their closeness and then their growing estrangement. The outlines of the story are not unique, but it’s particularly well-told and moving.
• Madeline Miller’s The Song of Achilles. I liked this retelling of Achilles’s story very much. It’s from the point of view of Patroclus and focuses on their relationship. The novel makes the familiar story of the Iliad feel fresh and new.
• Nicholson Baker’s The Way the World Works. This is a collection of essays, some of which were fabulous, and some of which left me thinking, huh? I should care about this why? These particular essays could have benefited from a little context, more explanation of why they were written and how they fit into the magazine or book collection they were originally written for. Baker is fascinated by the everyday stuff we are surrounded by, and I admire that quality in him, but sometimes he doesn’t convince us that his preoccupations might be our preoccupations as well. But then some of the essays are great, particularly the ones that are longer and more in-depth, where we get a sense of why his subject matters.
• Rachel Cusk’s A Life’s Work: On Becoming a Mother. I was inspired to check out a couple memoirs about motherhood from the library recently, and this is the first one I read. I also found Anne Enright’s Making Babies: Stumbling Into Motherhood, which Hobgoblin picked up and read immediately. He laughed his way through Enright’s book, while I read Cusk’s account of motherhood with growing anxiety. I admired the honesty of Cusk’s book, but her experience was very difficult. I can only hope mine won’t at all be like hers, although if it is, I’ll look back at her book and find comfort.
• Lastly, Eric Ambler’s A Coffin for Dimitrios. We are discussing this book at my mystery book group meeting this weekend. I enjoyed the novel very much, although I found its structure odd: it’s a thriller, I guess, but surprisingly long chunks of it are made up of people sitting around talking. There isn’t a whole lot of action, or at least not as much as you might expect. But the story itself is a good one, and the novel is very writerly as well: the main character is a crime novelist who decides he wants to investigate a crime himself, and so there is a lot of discussion of novelistic vs. real-life crimes, criminals, and crime narratives. That’s a lot of fun.

Finally, my week 38 picture: