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Washingtonpost.com
April 23, 2008 Wednesday 2:00 PM EST
Dirda on Books
BYLINE: Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World Columnist, washingtonpost.com
SECTION: LIVEONLINE
LENGTH: 5840 words
HIGHLIGHT: Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda took your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda took your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
Each week Michael Dirda's name appears -- in attractively large type -- in The Post's Book World section, where he writes about new novels, neglected classics, fat biographies, European literature, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, poetry, works of scholarship, the occasional children's book, almost anything under the rubric of "arts and letters." Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain, well into middle age, a myopic 12-year-old's exuberant passion for reading.
As he has for the past 40 years, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (classical, jazz, oldies, country and western), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, writing. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003), his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book" (Norton, 2003) and a collection of his essays and reviews titled "Bound to Please" (Norton, 2005) Last year he brought out "Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life" (Henry Holt, 2006) and last fall Harcourt published "Classics for Pleasure."
Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Montaigne, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell, P.G. Wodehouse and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." Dirda is a member of several literary associations, including the Baker Street Irregulars and The Ghost Story Society. Despite a penchant for quiet and solitude, he enjoys giving talks, teaching, and traveling. People tell him that he can be pretty funny for a guy who usually has his nose in a book.
(He also thinks he can be pretty funny at times...)
An archive of his reviews is available here.
An archive of his discussions is available here.
Dirda was online Wednesday, April 23, at 2 p.m.
A transcript follows.
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Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! It's a bright sunny day here in Washington--too bright, in fact, since my eyes are still doped up from the ophthalmologist visit this morning. It's been a busy week here in Lake Wobegon--old projects coming back for revision, trying to get ahead with my regular reviewing, visiting doctors, etc. etc. Just before this chat, I was working on my next review for Book World--and had got to the last paragraph just when 2 PM rolled around. So I'm mildly resentful of all you guys for interrupting my work. Oh, that should be My Work. Or even My All-Important Work. History will remember you posters as the Persons from Porlock who interrupted a masterpiece in the making. Of course, I always liken my reviews to Coleridge's Kubla Khan--the same musical diction, the gorgeous imagery, the depth of wisdom and reading revealed in every word.
Oh, enough silliness. Let's look at today's questions.
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Alexandria, Va.:"The Embarkation for Cythera" is probably out of your hands, but "La Surprise" is coming up for bid soon. It would look nice in your study.
Michael Dirda: Well, I'm trusting you to act as my agent. Go as high as your pocketbook allows. It's the least you can do to support my ongoing effort to bring culture to the deprived citizens of Metro Washington.
In fact, I see that the art critic Jed Perl has written a book called Watteau's World--coming this fall--and surely I should review it. We'll see.
For those who wonder what this is all about: In the biographical profile for this chat, I mention that Watteau's Embarkation is my favorite painting.
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Alexandria, Va.: Have to be in a meeting, so I have an early question. A friend of mine is doing a countryside walking tour of Ireland (I'm not sure where). I've already given her a guidebook, but would like a good book that would capture the Irish spirit. Thought maybe a book of myths or fairy tales, but got overwhelmed at the choices. Or some kind of Irish reader. Any ideas? - thanks so much!
Michael Dirda: Well, you certainly seem to be on the right track. There was an old Viking Portable Irish Reader, probably edited by Padraic Colum or someone like that, and you might be able to turn up a copy pretty readily in used bookstores. I'm trying to remember, but I think William Trevor--the great short story writer--has a book about Ireland. It might be useful. There's also an old V.S. Pritchett album, with pictures, about Dublin. But you're mostly interested in the countryside. I can think of plenty of novels--from Flann O'Brien to Edna O'Brien--but not sure they quite have what you want. Anyone have some better ideas?
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Woodlawn, Va.: Both National Poetry Month and Earth Day were on my mind yesterday when I came across these lines from Shakespeare's Sonnet 4: "Nature's bequest gives nothing but doth lend/And being frank she lends to those are free." The Bard wasn't issuing an environmental warning when he wrote those lines, but I thought his words fitting nonetheless.
Speaking of poems, I have an 8-year-old son and a 5-year-old daughter whom I'd like to get interested in poetry. Any recommendations on where to begin?
Many thanks.
Michael Dirda: Poetry for kids. Well, there's Dr. Seuss and Sid Sheldon and Jack Prelutsky. But there are also a half dozen good anthologies of children's poetry out there. Oh, I wish I could remember the title of one--a gorgeous album, something of a classic. Clearly I need to dig out my children's children's books to refresh my memory.
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WpgManCDA: Dear Mr. Dirda,
I tend to be suspicious of literary critics, but one reason I trust you is that, while I have no doubt you are just as expert on abstruse academic theories as the next guy, you seem to appreciate the kind of down-to-earth books that "regular" people like me enjoy. For example, you don't look down your nose at Somerset Maugham or Agatha Christie. So I figure you're just the person to explain to me what in heaven's name "deconstructionism" is. (In last week's chat, we learned that a former classmate of yours is "a noted deconstructionist and translator of Derrida.")
Could you (or any of the chat participants) provide a brief, concrete example, based on a well-known book (let's say Pride and Prejudice or David Copperfield), of what a deconstructionist might say? I've tried to find the answer to this on my own, but I get nowhere (and I don't THINK I'm an idiot).
Thanks for any help you can provide.
washingtonpost.com: You are causing me angst since I majored in literature and my advisor was a major Derridaist ... I think I could have answered this about 15 years ago but now it is making my brain hurt. - Elizabeth (producer)
Michael Dirda: Well, let's take a stab. One of the big deals in deconstruction is that a text---they always say text, not poem or story--can be more interesting for what it doesn't say than for what it does. One needs to look at the gaps, the silences, the hors-texte. So to take Jane Austen. A deconstructionist might point out how slavery--never mentioned--supports the family in Mansfield Park. Remember that the father is out in the islands overseeing his sugar plantation or something? One might then say that the genteel tone of Austen's prose is actually masking an inherent anxiety about the support for that gentility. And then, of course, we could go on to the lesbianism.
Texts, according to the deconstructionist view, are produced by social pressures as much as by authors.
Anyway, I think these are close to how a deconstructionist might look at Austen. But I was never a follower of Derrida--too hard for me and not that appealing. When I want hard, I'd rather read Spinoza.
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Poetry for kids: What about some Emily Dickinson? Her poems are short and easy to understand, and many are fun and silly. We make up our own using her style.
Michael Dirda: An interesting idea. That said, I always think of Dickinson as rather a grim poet, obsessed with death and loneliness and such.
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Stirling, Scotland: Re: Irish visit
Try Celtic Twilight by Yeats. Has some old tales from the countryside plus his own ruminations.
Michael Dirda: Oh, I read that. I suppose the poster could also read the great Irish epic, The Tain. Or pick up a Penguin or Oxford book of Irish verse. He or she could also watch that old movie, The Quiet Man--that last great fight seems to spread over half of Ireland. Of course, a reading of The Dead would probably be in order as well.
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Takoma Park, Md.: Ah, Jed Perl. He and I studied for our bat and bar mitzvahs together. Talked then like he writes now, but showed no interest in art at that age.
Michael Dirda: Talks then as he writes now--that doesn't sound too good.
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Lubbock, Tex.: I've finally found a writer my 13 yr old son WANTS to read - Terry Pratchett. Pratchett reminds me of Jerome K. Jerome - (Three Men in a Boat) and Tom Holt (Flying Dutch), and is a more coherent writer than Douglas Adams. What American writers are absurd yet shrewdly observant at the same time?
Michael Dirda: You probably haven't caught this chat too often, since I've been going on about Terry Pratchett for years. I've got an essay on him in Bound to Please. Is your son reading the kids books or the regular Discworld novels? Not that there all that different. But with TP you've got at least 30 books to get through.
American equivalents--probably the closest is Christopher Moore. But Terry really is in a class of his own, right up there close to The Master, P.G. Wodehouse. But Wodehouse doesn't have Pratchett's social and political edge. I once compared him to Chaucer.
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Waldorf, Md.: For the poster looking for poetry for children, I think that Lewis Carroll's "Jabberwocky" is a great kid's poem to introduce them to the world of poetry. My aunt made me memorize the poem as a child and I remember loving the poem's sense of adventure and the playful nonsense words.
Michael Dirda: Yes, a good suggestion. But what do you mean nonsense words? You need to read Lewis Padgett's story "Mimsy Were the Borogroves."
By the way, for those in the DC area, this coming weekend sees a meeting of the North American Lewis Carroll Society. You might still be able to sign up to attend a talk or join the merriment.
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Monterey, Va.: Hi, Michael --
Apologies for my part in your Coleridge-like experience. Let's see if my old beglandered XP will send a message. To the Washington poster who'd like to get her children interested in poetry -- I suggest the English author Elinor Farjeon.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks.
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Sid Sheldon?!?: I think you mean Shel Silverstein. I wouldn't give any of Sidney Sheldon's potboilers to a kid.
Michael Dirda: Oh, you're right. But now that I think about it--Sidney Sheldon would be..... no, just forget I ever said that. All names with S's sound alike to me--Sidney Smith, Samuel Smiles, Sacheverell Sitwell, who can tell them apart?
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Incline Village, Nevada: Apropos of Irish visit, do, do read THE COUNTRY Girls by Edna O'Brien. Just finished it -- in anticipation of Ireland visit, and it was still fresh and powerful.
And re your pun last week I remember in high school my friend's father was a professor of philosophy at Haverford College and said his whole life he wanted to teach a course "Two Philosophies: Locke's and Hegel's." Tasty, eh?
Michael Dirda: Very cute. Glad he didn't include Kant.
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Fairfax, Va.: What is your opinion of Ian Fleming as a writer? Have you ever read one of his James Bond novels?
I gather Evelyn Waugh didn't think much of his books, although there might have been some personal animus involved (Waugh was a friend of Fleming's wife, but I didn't get the impression the two men were close). Waugh wasn't a literary snob -- he was a fan of the Perry Mason books. I wonder if Fleming would be forgotten today, were it not for the happy chance that Pres. Kennedy expressed his enjoyment of "From Russia With Love".
Michael Dirda: I've read them all. And, as it happens, am likely to reread one one or two in the coming month. I think they are fine thrillers, and would be read now even without the movies or Kennedy's endorsement. It's not often that a writer creates a character who seems to embody an archetype. Sherlock Holmes is the great example, but James Bond is right up there. Everyone knows about 007. In both cases, the movies built on and added to the popularity of the books.
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Emily Dickinson: Right. I'm really just thinking of her nature poems.
Michael Dirda: Okay.
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Lenexa, Kan.:"The Oxford Book of Children's Verse in America" (edited by Donald Hall) is now 20 years old but still my favorite. I remember once using it to introduce poetry to a bright niece.
Michael Dirda: Yes, those Oxford books are always, as the Brits say, good value for money.
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Capitol Hill: Regarding absurd but shrewdly observant writers, have you read any of Tom Sharpe's books? A very funny British satirist.
Michael Dirda: Yep. A couple of them--Riotous Assembly, for instance, about South Africa. Very vulgar and bawdy at times. I have a half dozen of his books. He lacks the smoothness of Pratchett--he's edgier, more heavy-handed, sometimes grotesque. But still funny. Mostly.
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Pittsburgh: Poetry for children? My favorite was Ogden Nash. Always made me laugh!
Michael Dirda: Yes. What's the one about the little girl who thwarts all the fairy tale monsters? Yes, "The Adventures of Isabel." An old favorite. "She quietly cut the giant's head off."
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Deconstruction: Is it bad that I love deconstruction? It might be the historian in me where the social context to literature provides an interesting glimpse into perspectives of a particular past (same thing with art, music et. al).
Michael Dirda: Well, no, it's not bad at all. My only gripe, really, is the jargon. But for all I know my example was ill chosen. Austen famously never mentions the Napoleonic Wars, which are going on right through her life.
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Fair Oaks, Va.: I still remember a poetry anthology that my parents read to us when we were very small. There were several Robert Louis Stevenson poems, some classic folk tales/poems such as Old Mother Hubbard, The Walrus and the Carpenter, etc.
What made it memorable for me was the great artwork that accompanied the poetry. This is important for the preliterate crowd. Some of the art (especially from the 18th century) was downright eccentric and I was fascinated with it.
Michael Dirda: Didn't the Provensens do such a book? The Golden Book of Poetry or something like that. "Where go the boats". . . .
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Arlington, Va.: Hi, Michael,
Have you heard anything about the book Wikinomics? I saw it in Borders yesterday, it looked good, but not sure if it's worth the cover price. Is it worth buying or should I wait for it to reach my local library?
Thanks!
Michael Dirda: Don't know anything about it. Something to do with Wikipedia, I presume. Or maybe it's a financial planning guide for wiccans.
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Children's poetry: Caroline Kennedy has put together some very nice collections of poetry based on the scrapbooks she and her brother made for their mother, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Apparently on holidays the "gift" they would give their mother was choosing a poem for her. They are lovely books.
Michael Dirda: Thank you.
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WpgManCDA: Dear Mr. Dirda,
Just following up a bit about deconstructionism. Your answer does indeed give me a handle on the topic, so I thank you. If a text "can be more interesting for what it doesn't say than for what it does," the "what it doesn't say" part of that means that a deconstructionist can drag in everything else in the universe (the complementary set, as it were, for mathematical types like me). I often see reviews that seem to attack a book for what it didn't do (and I sometimes think: "write your own book if you don't like it!"), so I guess I can assume that the writer of the review is a deconstructionist, even if he/she "doesn't say" so. And if I then conclude that the reviewer has a hidden agenda, I guess I'm "deconstructing" the review.
You didn't say it, but I got the sense that you may not be that much of a believer in deconstructionism. There I go again!
Michael Dirda: Well, I don't read much literary theory at all any more. But my old favorites were more of the previous generations--New Critics, Real Scholars, Old-Time Men and Women of Letters. So I was formed, as they say, by William Empson, W.H. Auden, Northrop Frye, Edmund Wilson, Randall Jarrell, Cyril Connolly, Janet Flanner, Virgil Thomson, Erich Auerbach, Leo Spitzer, E.R. Curtius, etc etc.
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the tourist map of literature: If you go to this website and put in the name of an author then the site will magically reveal similar authors (according to some unknown schema).
But it's a great way to discover new authors. I tried Proust and was amazed at whom I did not know of.
Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Thanks. So you put in Proust and up came Lipton, Bigelow, etc etc. Just teasing.
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Anonymous: Thanks to you and my fellow posters for your great suggestions for children's poetry. I never would have thought of Emily Dickinson as a child-friendly poet, but the Poetry Foundation does include a couple of her works in the children's section of its Web site.
In an effort to return the favor, to the poster looking for absurd but trenchant books for teens, how about Walter de la Mare? He's English, not American, but it sounds like he otherwise fits the criteria. In fact, I recently read your 2004 review of his Memoirs of a Midget, a great read in itself.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks. Yes, De La Mare is one of the giant's of children's poetry. The recent issue of the New Criterion has an excellent essay on his work by Eric Ormsby.
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Maitland, Fla.: My best friend is (was) a Shakespeare Prof at the Univ. of Central Florida. He once told me that deconstructionism also says that the order of the words in the text is irrelevant. In other words you could just cut them all out and throw them in a pile and reconstruct at random. True?
Michael Dirda: No. Which prof? You know I taught there in 2000.
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Daydream Believers: Multiple volumes have been written with dozens seeming to come out daily about the Bush Presidency. I've read many of them, but Fred Kaplan really does a great job in 200 pages about the neocons and the evolution of their thinking and how W and Rummy, et. al. were so naive. And of course it continues today.
Michael Dirda: Thanks, Fred. Glad you were able to write in. (Again--just teasing.)
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Sherlock Holmes: Do you know where Holmes fits into the English class system? I'm guessing he went to the best schools and his "job" seems acceptable for an aristocrat (well, it works for Peter Wimsey, and he is the second son of a duke).
This matter is not vitally important, I know, but it wanders through the canyons of my mind from time to time and it irritates.
Michael Dirda: Holmes wasn't an aristocrat. His family seems like country gentility. There were artists in his background (the Vernets). AS for his school: That debate continues to this day.
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Tysons, Va.: And of course Ian Fleming also wrote Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Funny how many children's authors (including Roald Dahl and Shel Silverstein) have written very graphic adult novels.
Michael Dirda: An interesting point. Dahl's stories about Uncle Oswald are astonishingly explicit about sexual matters, without being vulgar. Never read anything of Shel S's but Where the Sidewalk Ends and The Giving Tree--one of the most successful tearjerkers of all time.
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Minnetonka, Minn.: Michael,
I'm reading Franz Kafka and was thinking how almost all of his writing was published after his death and how he had instructed his literary executor Max Brod to destroy everything. I'm glad he didn't. There is also rumored to be notebooks and manuscripts in the hands of the Gestapo taken from Dora Diamant (I see a bibliomystery here). But what I want to ask was your opinion of authors' last wishes. There are many examples of great works that might have been lost had survivors not disregarded the authors.
Michael Dirda: I've actually answered this before. I tend to feel that authors who want to destroy their works should just go ahead and do so. But they can't ask others to do it for them. A literary executor should preserve as much as possible, though he might embargo the material for a certain number of years, often until everyone is dead who might be hurt by the author's revelations.
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Lubbock, Tex.: Re: Ireland. Maurice Walsh wrote the original short story on which The Quiet Man is based. He wrote mainly in the 30's, but has some very evocative books set in the Irish countryside.
Michael Dirda: Many thanks.
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Richmond Hill, Ga.: What about "The Irish RM" for the Irish visit? It is 19th century, but, as I remember, the whole point of it was to talk about Irish country life.
Michael Dirda: Good idea.
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Thanks for mentioning Bleak House: Someone posted last week that they didn't like Bleak House, and your defense made me look it up, and now I'm hooked. For some reason, although I am addicted to 19th-c. British novels, I had never been able to get into Dickens (except of course for A Christmas Carol), but the first pages of BH did it. Thanks for forewarning me about soppy Esther, though.
Maybe I'll try Pickwick next.
Michael Dirda: Hey, see, guys--this chat is useful!
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Raleigh, N.C.: for the Irish spirit see Thomas Flannagan's "The Year of the French"
Michael Dirda: For the pipes must be together, at the rising of the moon.
Ah, Thomas Flanagan--he used to review for me. A great authority on Irish literature and history.
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Washington, D.C.: I just finished a book I can recommend: "God of Animals" by Aryn Kyle. It's narrated by a 12-yr old girl who is struggling with poverty, identity and family crises. It may sound formulaic (down to the mentally ill mother-- lots of those in fiction these days) but it was very well written.
Michael Dirda: Hmm. It would have to be.
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Pittsburgh: You mention "old projects coming back for revision." I've been on tenterhooks all week waiting to hear re one of my manuscripts this week, as I'm naturally fearing rejection. If it IS rejected, should I ask the publishers if they'd like me to revise it, or send the manuscript as-is to another publisher instead? Sorry to be feeling so insecure.
Michael Dirda: Depends on what they say, and how they say it. But I wouldn't give up altogether.
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The Crypt: I notice you belong to the Ghost Story Society but someone told me it is no longer active and it doesn't appear to have updated its website in many years. Does it still exist?
Michael Dirda: Yes, it does exist. I should think you could find it by Googling it. Alternately, you could look for All-Hallows, the magazine of the GSS. There's also a chat group.
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The Deptford Trilogy: So my book club couldn't help themselves and the Manticore ended up being our April book (after Fifth Business was our February book). Just wanted to pull out a plug for it since I breezed through that and World of Wonders on a plane trip and loved it.
My favorite quotation?
The bee in his bonnet was that history and myth are two aspects of a kind of grand pattern in human destiny: history is the mass of observable or recorded fact, but myth is the abstract or essence of it. He used to dredge up extraordinary myths that none of us had ever heard of and demonstrate-in a fascinating way, I must admit-how they contained some truth that was applicable to widely divergent historical situations. -David Staunton, speaking of Dunstan Ramsay in The Manticore (p356).
Thought I would share.
Michael Dirda: I hope you read the recent Penguin reissue of The Manticore, with that simply fabulous introduction by that critic--what is his name--you know, the one who's as handsome as he is intelligent.
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Lenexa, Kan.: Existential Blues (Musings for your comment. Thanks as always.):
First thought: Geoffrey Wheatcroft reviewing recently in the NYTBR draws a distinction of "lost time" as either a Proustian search to reclaim it (at least to the extent that our madeleines enable), or a more resigned Goethean acceptance that it is gone forever (that Eternity never gives it back).
Second thought: Someone as existentially-haunted as Ingmar Bergman -- his whole life and work seemingly one long chess match with Death -- saying before he died: "When I was young, I was extremely scared of dying, but now I think it a very, very wise arrangement. It's like a light that is extinguished. Not very much to make a fuss over."
Third thought: The incompleteness of each person's life is especially troubling -- also true of a species as a whole. John Barth -- no stranger to postmodern angst -- saw it all as "The Floating Opera." Some people die at half time of the Super Bowl (not knowing who won the game).
Michael Dirda: Lenexa, you're such a wise man. I would like to hope you don't just dash these things off, but I suspect you do.
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Lexington: Michael, The question of what historians to read about the American Revolution comes up occasionally here. In a sense, this question goes back to Tolstoy and his essay on history that closes "War and Peace." David McCullough, who writes extremely well and wins prizes, seems to favor the biographical approach to history with his books such as "John Adams," which places characters as opponents and sometimes finds villains in those who oppose his 'hero.' Academics, on the other hand, seem mired sometimes in minutiae, fighting the same battles over and over again. Or, they are explicating history from a newer approach: women, slavery, Native Americans, immigration, etc., which are worthwhile certainly but avoid the larger picture sometimes. So who to read that can write for a general audience while tackling the important issues of our history, and can still portray figures of the past as human and fallible struggling with how to create a new country? Gordon S. Wood is a good place to start, whose most recent book is "The Purpose of the Past: Reflections of the Uses of History" (which addresses some of the above issues), and who has also written many books on the Founders in a non-hagiographic way. Joseph Ellis (who had a problem with his own non-history) has written about the Revolution and the founders. His most recent book is "American Creation: Triumphs and Tragedies at the Founding of the Republic," which seeks to answer how the Revolution and the founding succeeded when it was guided by very human and fallible men, and what historical timing and events helped it to succeed. There are, of course, many other historians who avoid McCullough's pitfalls: James McPherson, Shelby Foote, Daniel Walker Howe, author of the recent Pulitzer winner for history, "What Hath God Wrought," part of the Oxford series which you recently praised, Edward J. Larson, Edmund S. Morgan. I'm sure you can add many others to this list, and you may have different opinions of some of the above, but I believe this is a good place to start. It's significant that there are so many readers for the American Revolution - this wasn't always true. The Civil War dominated historians for so long. There are many important fictional works about the Civil War and very few about the Revolution (though Jerome Charyn recently added to the latter list). And, then there is Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor" which is a great novel about early Colonial history.
Michael Dirda: Another brilliant posting. Many thanks.
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Georgetown: Yesterday I read about the financial troubles of the nonprofit that runs Edith Wharton's house, The Mount, in your sister pub, Slate.com. I was moved to pledge a donation. However, I was very saddened by the comments to the piece, almost all of which were of the "Let it rot, who reads Edith Wharton anyway?" type. Do you agree that America is less of a reading nation than it used to be, or do you think that those who consider reading to be a waste of time have more forums (like that comment section) to sound off about their woefully misguided beliefs?
washingtonpost.com: Save the Mount! (Slate, April 21)
Michael Dirda: I don't think those who consider reading a waste of time have more forums. You have to be able to read to contribute to the internet. But Americans tend to be more interested in the present and future than in the past, and preservation is less in our nature than adding on or rebuilding.
That said, Edith Wharton wrote about rich and well off people. Not good, if you want the common people to support your house after you're gone.
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Maryland: Do you like any fiction that draws heavily on theology?
Michael Dirda: Heavily? Heavier than Grahame Greene? Are we talking Charles Kingsley, C.S. Lewis, that sort of thing? In general, novels can have ideas in them--about God or anything else--but too much theology generally turns a book didactic. This can be good--I love The Pilgrim's Progress. Still. . . .
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Washington, D.C.: Could you provide a link to the Post's review of 'The Makioka Sisters'? Thanks. And while I'm at it, have you read it? What did you think?
washingtonpost.com: Unfortunately that review does not seem to be available online - sorry.
Michael Dirda: When was this?
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Maryland: I read your comment about not knowing seafaring terms, and how when you come across such arcane language in a book you simply think "sailors swarming up a rope, doing something." That pretty well sums up my way of coping with this as well. But what am I to do when I read a book and an entire sentence or paragraph is in Latin? I never learned Latin. I just read The Lost Stradivarius by John Meade Falkner. I tried an on-line Latin-English dictionary but was only successful in finding three or so words translated. Most of the time the web site returned the answer "Terms not found" or something.
And the same thing goes for Greek! There's a poem by Byron where every stanza ends with a Greek sentence, and I don't know what that sentence means.
Michael Dirda: Frustrating, I agree. Sometimes I try to decipher these things, other times I feel as you do. Still, I would think that some edition of The Lost Strad--perhaps the Tartarus, which I don't own--would have notes with a translation.
This always frustrated me as a kid, especially when I'd try to read Gibbon or Krafft Ebbing or someone and the real sexy parts were in the decent obscurity of an ancient tongue.
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Columbia, Md.: I missed last week's chat live, but surely the "Greatest Living Catholic Writer" in English (particularly if you mean someone whose Catholicism deeply infuses all of his writing) is Gene Wolfe. I'm a member of three book reading groups (anything worth doing is worth overdoing) and one of them reads nothing but Gene Wolfe. And none of the members are Catholic!
Michael Dirda: Well, you may be right. Gene is a devout Catholic, and religion does pervade his novels, so this makes sense. But I never quite thought of him this way.
Gee, we've had the Jane Austen Book Club and now there's The Gene Wolfe Book Club.
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Central Va.: I just finished reading Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, and I noticed that there was a brief quote from you on the cover. What did you think about it?
A friend was bothered by the incredibly detailed memories some of the characters had as they told their stories; I said you just have to suspend a little belief... (or maybe they kept diaries - surely it's not just us who can't remember what was for dinner last night). It wasn't a book that I'll love forever (like One Hundred Years of Solitude), but I liked it.
Would you care to expand on your thoughts? I thought the quote might be from a review you did.
Thanks
washingtonpost.com: Dirda's review of "The Shadow of the Wind" (Book World, April 25, 2004)
Michael Dirda: Well, here's the review below. I enjoyed the book a lot.
_______________________
Rexburg, Idaho: Michael, you have often mentioned that you don't read bestsellers. Do you make exceptions if the book is a commercial success but also wins The Booker Prize, i.e. Life of Pi, Atonement, etc.?
Michael Dirda: It's not that I deliberately don't read best sellers. Sometimes I read and review a book that becomes a best seller. All I meant is that I didn't generally have much interest in most purely commercial fiction. I'm not knocking it--entertainment is entertainment--but it's not the way I want to spend my time. That said, I've reviewed McEwan several times.
_______________________
Reston, Va.: Good afternoon! I was hoping, sir, that you could recommend other books that follow in the vein of novels by Neal Stephenson, William Gibson and Haruki Murakami. I enjoy their seemingly common themes of what I interpret as "real man" in both practical and surreal environments. I especially liked Murakami's insights into Japanese contemporary culture and appreciate how all three authors incorporate cutting edge science, pop culture and history into thought provoking entertainment. Thanks!
Michael Dirda: Well, you could add Bruce Sterling, Gibson's friend and sometimes writing partner. Also, try the novel Transmission by, oh, what is the name? Haru, Hari something Indian. Damn memory. Or, you could just follow our earlier poster's advice and plug your favorite writer's names into that website she recommended.
Well, the great tiredness has suddenly descended and it's time for me to stop. You've been a great audience, really you have. Just wonderful. Remember what happens on Dirda on Books stays on Dirda on Books!
Sorry I didn't get to all the questions.
Till next Wednesday at 2--keep reading!
_______________________
Editor's Note: washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions. washingtonpost.com is not responsible for any content posted by third parties.
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He interrupted her. Close at hand is a stable where two beautiful ponies are kept. They are snowy white, and are consecrated to the goddess Ku-wanon, the deity of mercy, who is the presiding genius of the temple. They are in the care of a young girl, and it is considered a pious duty to feed them. Pease and beans are for sale outside, and many devotees contribute a few cash for the benefit of the sacred animals. If the poor beasts should eat a quarter of what is offered to them, or, rather, of what is paid for, they would soon die of overfeeding. It is shrewdly suspected that the grain is sold many times over, in consequence of a collusion between the dealers and the keeper of the horses. At all events, the health of the animals is regarded, and it would never do to give them all that is presented. On their return from the garden they stopped at a place where eggs are hatched by artificial heat. They are placed over brick ovens or furnaces, where a gentle heat is kept up, and a man is constantly on watch to see that the fire neither burns too rapidly nor too slowly. A great heat would kill the vitality of the egg by baking it, while if the temperature falls below a certain point, the hatching process does not go on. When the little chicks appear, they are placed under the care of an artificial mother, which consists of a bed of soft down and feathers, with a cover three or four inches above it. This cover has strips of down hanging from it, and touching the bed below, and the chickens nestle there quite safe from outside cold. The Chinese have practised this artificial hatching and rearing for thousands of years, and relieved the hens of a great deal of the monotony of life. He would not have it in the scabbard, and when I laid it naked in his hand he kissed the hilt. Charlotte sent Gholson for Ned Ferry. Glancing from the window, I noticed that for some better convenience our scouts had left the grove, and the prisoners had been marched in and huddled close to the veranda-steps, under their heavy marching-guard of Louisianians. One of the blue-coats called up to me softly: "Dying--really?" He turned to his fellows--"Boys, Captain's dying." Assuming an air of having forgotten all about Dick¡¯s rhyme, he went to his place in the seat behind Jeff and the instant his safety belt was snapped Jeff signaled to a farmer who had come over to investigate and satisfy himself that the airplane had legitimate business there; the farmer kicked the stones used as chocks from under the landing tires and Jeff opened up the throttle. ¡°Yes,¡± Dick supplemented Larry¡¯s new point. ¡°Another thing, Sandy, that doesn¡¯t explain why he¡¯d take three boys and fly a ship he could never use on water¡ªwith an amphibian right here.¡± Should you leave me too, O my faithless ladie? And years of remorse and despair been your fate, That night was a purging. From thenceforward Reuben was to press on straight to his goal, with no more slackenings or diversions. "Is that you, Robin?" said a soft voice; and a female face was seen peeping half way down the stairs. HoMElãñÔóÂÜÀ³ó
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