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Book Rate
A
digested book "review": cheap shots, glib commentary,
shameless advocacy of insidious ideology of social and economic
justice and idiosyncratic and totally arbitrary choices of books
that come our way via our gallant and steadfast UPS drivers and
other routes. Also, this is for 1) people who don't want to shell
out two hundred dollars for a subscription to Publisher's Weekly
2) Book lovers who are averse to reading reviews 3) Readers who
are not incited to mouth foaming at the mere mention of Toni Morrison,
Salman Rushdie and Don DeLillo and most importantly 4) for people
who trust us.
Maybe.
Note: (RB) = Robert
Birnbaum; (RLW) = RL
Whalen; (JT) = Janice Tsai; (MB) will someday equal Matt Borondy;
and soon enough there will be other abbreviations to deal with.
December 22, 2003
Ready For Revolution: The Life and Struggles of Stokely
Carmichael (Kwame Ture)
-Stokley Carmichael with Ekwueme Michael Telwell (834 PP, Scribners)
For Americans the '60s--and perhaps even the '70s--seem to be dissolving
into the mists of time. Making all the more valuable this book chronicling
the life (and to some degree the times) of one of the leading actors
in the civil rights/Black Power movement. Stokely Carmichael co-authored
the seminal Black Power: The Politics of Liberation in America
with Charles Hamilton, and he was an energetic leader and spokesman
for the Student
Non Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) which was a prime
organizer of the Mississippi
Freedom Rides. Carmichael's studies and politics lead him to
travel to areas rife with national liberation movements, finally
settling in Africa, where he continued his political work until
he died of prostate cancer in 1998. This book was dictated by Carmichael,
from his sickbed, to his lifelong friend Ekwueme Michael Thelwell,
who augmented it with interviews of the other players in the events
recounted by Carmichael. Surely, this man's story ranks in significance
with Martin Luther King's, Malcolm X's and Angela Davis'. (RB)
The Pieces from Berlin
– Michael Pye (335 PP, Knopf)
My bad, but I had forgotten about Michael Pye's third novel until
I saw his recent New
York Times review of Antonio Muñoz Molina's Sepharad,
another novel that I hope to get around to reading. Pye's novels
are compelling character studies as he confirms with his latest
based on the true story of mistress of an Italian diplomat in wartime
Berlin who trafficked in stolen art at the expense of concentration-camp-bound
Jews. This story carries forward to postwar Switzerland where Sara
Freeman discovers, in the store window of Zurich antique dealer
Lucia Muller-Rossi, a table she and her husband had owned before
the war—a piece from a Berlin. As Sarah
Means Lohmann writes, "The book is a contrast of confessions
and denials, of the same moments lived over in different peoples'
minds, creating a splayed reality. The book's final confession is
vivid work, but it is only able to thoroughly grip the reader because
the author has kept the reader waiting, begging for the truth for
over 300 pages... Pye is in turn a poet, a historian and a priest.
He leaves the reader aware and unsettled, looking for his own shades
of truth in so many shiny storefront windows." (RB)
Stories from the Blue Moon Café II: Anthology of Southern
Writers edited by Sonny Brewer (361 PP, McAdam
Cage)
Sonny Brewer owns the Over the Transom bookshop in Fairhope, Alabama,
a town immortalized by among others, Clay
Risen, and also home to a sweet and congenial annual gathering
of writers known as Southern Writers Reading. This is obviously
the second anthology and fills in where Shannon Ravenel's venerable
annual, New Voices of The South, leaves off (or rather
adds onto). This edition includes Larry Brown, Tom Franklin, Brad
Watson, William Gay, Donald Hays, George Singletons and some writers
I haven't heard of—which is a good thing. I love that his
book is dedicated to you and me. (RB)
Siegfried
–Harry Mulisch (180 PP, Viking)
Dutch writer Harry Mulisch (The Assault and The Discovery
of Heaven and The Procedure) is regularly (again this
year) mentioned as a Nobel Prize candidate. This short novel has
a famous writer, Rudolf Herter, being entrusted with an incredible
secret, the existence of Siegfried, the son of Adolph Hitler and
Eva Braun. As Josh Lacey observes in the Guardian,
"Throughout the narrative, Mulisch hints at links between Herter
and Hitler... But Mulisch never resolves these hints, and ends the
book on a note of infuriating ambiguity, leaving us unsure whether
Herter has been consumed by Hitler, or finally managed to escape
him. Perhaps any artist tussling with the Nazis must constantly
confound his audience. In Schindler's List Spielberg used
the appearance of documentary realism to fictionalize the Holocaust;
Mulisch uses fiction to nudge us towards reality." (RB)
Lone Star Literature: A Texas Anthology: From the Red
River to
The Rio Grande
–edited by Don Graham (733 PP, WW Norton)
As this is the season of the anthology with Houghton Mifflin's
annual "Bests of" and the O Henry Prize Anthology and
more, this tome has as good an organizing principle as any, I suppose.
Don Graham teaches at The University of Texas at Austin and writes
for Texas Monthly, bona fides that qualify him to edit
this survey of Texan writing. Included here are Larry McMurtry,
Sandra Cisneros, Robert Caro, Molly Ivins, Dagoberto Gelb, Frank
Dobi, Kinky Friedman, Mary Karr and a host of others. (RB)
A Faker's Dozen
- Melvin Jules Bukiet (268 PP, WW Norton)
The fact that there are eleven stories in this, Bukiet's seventh
book of fiction, is an immediate tip off to his overarching playfulness
that gains momentum with the first story "Squeak Memory,"
in which Vladmir Nabokov is a character looking for shoes. Here
is Jessa
Crispin's appreciation of this new collection, "Bukiet
may love the ridiculous scene and the grandiose gesture, but there's
a simplicity to the themes he chooses. These are simple tales of
love, of a longing for power, of a desire for acknowledgement. Even
when believability is stretched, the stories' humanity remains exposed,
separating them from the too-clever..." (RB)
The Bookseller of Kabul
– Asne Seierstad (288 PP, Little Brown)
This little book by Norwegian journalist Asne Seirestad, identified
by Publisher's Weekly as an
international bestseller has caused some
controversy, which in itself is encouraging considering the
unlikely subject. Here from the Guardian, "…
but above all she bleeds for its women, treated like dirt even by
small boys. She says that this is a book about just one middle-class
family, 'if one can use that expression in Afghanistan.' And, of
course that is what is so compulsive, repulsive and frightening.
If this is what life is like in the family of Afghanistan's answer
to Tim Waterstone, there is clearly no hope for Afghanistan."
(RB)
From Chivalry to Terrorism : War and the Changing Nature of
Masculinity
– Leo Braudy (611 PP, Knopf)
Well, here's a book for our time, an era Charles Baxter has referred
as rife with "hypothetical masculinity." Leo Braudy (The
Frenzy of Renown: Fame and its History) takes on the notion
that sexual behavior is innate with a meticulous examination of
a cast of characters from Don Quixote to General George Custer.
As Braudy says, "The warrior image is always there to be invoked
because it's part of the grab bag of cultural images. But it's not
an eternal aspect of masculinity nor does it permanently have to
be expressed in aggressive behavior. It's a product of cultural
forces and attitudes. War has an enduring amount of nostalgia in
it. It may be fought in the present with the most up-to-date weapons,
but it constantly calls on the heroes and the attitudes of the past.
The challenge is to understand the time-bound quality of these attitudes.
Men and women are born, but masculinity and femininity are made,
not just by how people grow up but also by the history in which
they live and the longer history that came before them." I
wonder how this book will be received in Texas or Washington. (RB)
Diane Arbus: Revelations
(352 PP, Random House)
It is a tribute to Diane Arbus's striking photographs that they
are still powerful and commanding—even in an era that has
outstripped her unabashed, unflinching gaze at the private, the
bizarre, and the painful (though not for the reasons that she plied
her art). The retrospective at the San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art, for which this tome serves as
the catalogue, assembles many never–before-seen images and
a commendable body of commentary (if that's your thing). As expected,
there was the usual feature
article attention and reviews.
Revelations "authored" by Arbus's eldest daughter,
Doon, includes 200 full-page duo-tones, essays by Sandra Phillips,
Elizabeth Sussman, Neil Selkirk and excerpts from letters, notebooks
and other writings. As Alfredo Sosa opines, "In the last 30
years, Arbus's work has been as influential as it's been controversial.
Her critics accuse her of making her subjects a bit freakish and
therefore feeding our voyeuristic hunger for the exotic. Through
her journals, correspondence, and the outtakes of her well-known
work, Revelations addresses these issues and defends her
effectively." (RB)
December 2, 2003
Responsibility and Judgment
– Hannah Arendt (295 PP, Schocken)
Hannah Arendt's coverage of the Adolph Eichmann trial in Israel
for the New Yorker and its subsequent enshrinement in the
book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil
is sufficient to qualify her as a pop cultural trivia question.
That, of course, overlooks her significant contributions to 20th
century philosophical discourse with books like The Origins
of Totalitarianism, On Violence and On Revolution.
She took more than a fair ration of shit from a number of quarters
for her relationship with Nazi sympathizer and philosopher Martin
Heidegger and also for the Eichmann book. In this book she comments,
“I want to comment on the rather furious controversy touched
off by my book…I deliberately use the words ‘touched
off,’ rather than the word ‘caused,’ for a large
part of the controversy was devoted to a book that was never written.”
My first reaction was to dismiss the whole affair with the famous
words of an Austrian wit [Karl Kraus?], “There is nothing
as entertaining as the discussion of a book nobody has read.”
In any case, Responsibility and Judgment is Arendt's ongoing
investigation of ethical issues with chapters on "Collective
Responsibility", "Reflections of Little Rock" [Arkansas]
and "Auschwitz on Trial" has, as Susan Nieman points out,
"For readers who know Arendt, the autobiographical reflections
and the discussions of personal; responsibility under dictatorship
will be of great interest in understanding the background of Eichmann
in Jerusalem. For those who don't, essays such as "Auschwitz
on Trial" will provide superb introduction to her views and
a chance to probe, without hearsay or slander, one of the great
thinkers of our time." (RB)
There Are Jews in My House
– Lara Vapnyar (149 PP, Pantheon)
Maybe I'll start a section in my library devoted to titles with
odd or funny uses of the word 'Jew'. Or maybe I just find 'Jew'
in the title of a work of fiction an amusing oddity and that's why
Mean Jews of Chicago is the latest working title of my
memoir-in-progress (also a work of fiction). At least Joseph Epstein's
fabulous Fabulous Small Jews will not be alone on the shelf.
Russian-born Staten Island resident Lara Vapnyar was recently published
in the New Yorker's 2003 First Fiction issue. Louis Menand
calls her a "Jane Austen with a Russian soul," and this,
her debut collection, consists of six miniatures of Russian life.
(RB)
The Progress Paradox
– Gregg Easterbrook (376 PP, Random House)
This vivid example of cognitive dissonance is, of course, an interesting
issue and Easterbrook approaches it with a shrewd examination of
the American culture of crisis and complaint. Studies cited show
that the percentage of the population that is happy has not increased
in fifty years and emotional depression is more prevalent. Easterbrook
looks at “positive psychology” and offers his own prescription
for our postmodern ills. It remains to be seen whether his affirmative
Weltanschauung will change the way you think and our collective
ability to make it better. (RB)
Hope Dies Last: Keeping the Faith in Troubled Times
– Studs Terkel (326 PP New Press)
Given consensus national treasure Studs Terkel's indefatigability
and longevity, it's a possibility that hope may die before he does.
I was much amused last summer when Sherwin Nuland, who is friendly
with Studs, told me he had just signed a three-book contract (which
reminds me of renowned bookie and nonagenarian Doc Sagansky's response
to a loan request, the would-be borrower assuring Doc he would make
good on his debt within the month, "Kid, I don't even buy green
bananas.") What's to be said about this latest of Terkel's
oral histories? I guess that it's a more personal account of the
so-called American Century. Here's a section from Studs' personal
notes:
While Studs’ Place [Terkel's early '50s Chicago TV show]
was still riding high, an emissary from NBC headquarters in New
York appeared. We sat down in solemn conference, he, I and the Chicago
station's executives. "We're in big trouble," the visitor
said. I was moved by his use of the royal pronoun.
"I have a list of petitions that you have presumably signed."
He ran off a good number, a dozen or so. "Is that true?"
"Oh, sure."
"Didn't you know communists were behind all these?"
I remember my reply. It was in the form of a question. "Suppose
communists came out against cancer. Do we have to come out for cancer?"
“That is not very funny.” I was facing Queen Victoria.
He continued suddenly assuming the tone of a drill sergeant. "These
days you have to stand up and be counted."
I stood up.
“That's not funny, either. Sit down!” I sat down.
“There is an easy way out. “ He suggested, a hopeful
note in his voice. "All you have to say is that you were duped
by the communists. You didn't mean it. You take it back. A lot of
people have done that. And they are doing fine."
I demurred and NBC decided that they could do without my services.
My hero…(RB)
Juniper Fuse: Upper Paleolithic Imagination & The
Construction of the Underworld
– Clayton Eschleman (300 PP, Wesleyan University Press)
Poet and translator Clayton Eshleman worked on this book for thirty
years, ever since he first visited southwestern France's caves and
discovered the astonishing wall art adorning them. Here is the inestimable
Eliot Weinberger, "Eshleman has pushed the historical back
about as far as it can go: to the Upper Paleolithic, and the earliest
surviving images made by humans. As a result of his literal and
imaginative explorations of the painted and gouged caves, Eshleman
has constructed a myth, perhaps the first compelling post-Darwinian
myth; that the Paleolithic represents the 'crisis ' of human 'separating'
out of the animal, the original birth and the original fall of man…the
poet's journey is an archetypal scenario of descent and birth: he
has traveled to the origin of humanness to reach the millennium,
end and beginning." Our thoughts exactly. (RB)
Reds: McCarthyism in Twentieth Century America
– Ted Morgan (685 PP, Knopf)
Here's a book that should be required reading for anyone serious
about understanding the currents and undertows of American politics
since mid-20th century or who took seriously comedian Ann Coulter's
—there is no other way to say it— stupid assessment
of Senator
Joe McCarthy. Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winning
historian Ted Morgan, born Sanche de Gramont (FDR: A Biography,
Churchill; A Young Man in A Hurry, Maugham) traces anti communism
back to the victory of Bolsheviks in Russia through WW II and its
absurdist apogee with "Tail Gunner" Joe
McCarthy. New KGB files and previously unavailable McCarthy
material fill in many blanks. (RB)
Harlem on the Verge
– Alice Attie (118 PP , Quantuck Lane Press/ WW Norton)
Alice
Attie, who teaches at Barnard College, has been photographing
New York City for thirty years. This slender book of ninety full-color
photographs captures Harlem at a pivotal time in its history as
Robin Kelley points out this book's introduction, "…she
[Attie] captures in light and shadow, the strangeness of what is
now being imposed on Harlem's people and culture, and the beauty
and power of a community that refuses to disappear. These documents
of daily life, love, dignity, and transformation can either serve
as a future memory of days gone or inform new battles against the
commercialization, militarization and Disney-facation of Harlem…"
Can we get an amen? (RB)
The Paris Review
– Fiftieth Anniversary Year
– Spring 2003 #165 (334 PP), Summer 2003, #166(294 PP), Fall
2003 #167 (423 PP)
Why wait another fifty years for a rock em, sock em anthology like
The Paris Review
Book of Heartbreak, Madness, Sex, Love, Betrayal, Outsiders, Intoxication,
War, Whimsy, Horrors, God, Death, Dinner, Baseball, Travels, the
Art of Writing, and Everything Else in the World Since 1953?
The list of notable items in these 50th anniversary issues pretty
much are the tables of contents. My favorites are Adam Begley's
interview with Jim Crace, Thomas Gardner's talk with Jorie Graham,
an oral biography of Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Silvana Paternostro
and a wonderful conversation with Jonathan Miller by Shusha Guppy.
Also, a talk with Jonathan Lethem by Lorin Stein. (RB)
Bellow; Novels 1944-1953
– Saul Bellow, with notes by James Wood (1029 PP, Library
of America)
Anomalous as it might be to have two distinct, English-language,
hardcover editions of Saul Bellow's fifty-year-old novel The
Adventures of Augie March published within months of each other,
certainly that anniversary gives some explanation. The Library of
America, a fine publishing institution with a hell of a (142 title)
backlist, made Bellow the first living author to be so enshrined.
This volume contains the others of his first three novels from 1944
to 1953, Dangling Man and The Victim. Literary
critic and neophyte novelist James Woods provides the notes. (RB)
Cubano Be Cubano Bop: One Hundred Years of Jazz in Cuba
– Leonard Acosta (288 PP, Smithsonian)
Given the long-standing and fertile two-way exchange between the
musical cultures of Cuba and the US, this book seems overdue. As
in other arts, Cuba has made a significant contribution to jazz,
and that can be easily and graphically illustrated by merely mentioning
Chucho Valdes, Arturo Sandival, Gonzalo Rubalcaba and Paquito d'Rivera.
Leonardo Acosta, who lives in Havana is a musicologist, musician
and literary critic and D'Rivera who met Acosta in the early '60s
playing in a jazz club says of him, "…[he] belongs to
that select group of musicians who possess the ability to communicate
through the written word. That's why I've always thought he was
the most appropriate person to the tell the story of what happened
in the past hundred years of jazz music on our island." (RB)
The Face of Appalachia: Portraits from a Mountain Farm
– Tim Barnwell (190 PP, WW Norton)
Tim Barnwell is a professional photographer living in Asheville,
North Carolina who has been documenting the lives of Appalachian
people's in the western Carolina, Eastern Tennessee for twenty years.
This culture, on the brink of obsolescence, is thematically presented
in sections such as The People and the Land, Tobacco, Business and
Handicrafts, Food Production, Winter, Religion and Oral Histories.
Barnwell is a creative descendant of the great FSA documentary photographers,
and WW Norton (which also published Michael Lesy's Long Time
Coming) deserves kudos for putting this book out. (RB)
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