Tag Archives: books

First Monday Book Day

Monday Book Day: Re-Reads

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Apologies for missing the first Monday.

I finished the Great Vonnegut (Re)-Read of 2015 by finishing his last novel, Timequake, right at the end of November.  When I decided to read all of Vonnegut's novels, Timequake was the one that I was most interested in re-reading.  I read it in 1997 when it was first published and I was in 10th grade.  And I don't think I got it.  I had always been perplexed when people have good things to say about the book because I thought it was my least favorite book of his.  So, I was very interested in what my reaction would be to it this time around, moreso than any of the other books.  (One nice thing about that being that it served as a very nice motivator to keep the project going, I had to get to Timequake to see how it had changed for me).

This time around, I loved it.  I'm not going to argue that it's a great novel.  It's half of a novel at best.  But if you spend time with Vonnegut, especially post-Breakfast of Champions Vonnegut, this book is a near perfect epilogue to his career.  Through this whole year I got the perspective that I was missing back in 1997.  The payoff to the project was pretty good.

This summer, I got in a friendly argument with my Dad about re-reading books.  He refuses to do it, using the "there's too many books I haven't read out there and not nearly enough time to read them all" argument.  He could not understand why I would choose to re-read all of Vonnegut's novels or start The Wheel of Time over from the beginning when the final three books started coming out.  So I went back and looked through my reading spreadsheets and found that I really don't re-read very much.  I feel like that's the majority opinion, most people feel like they don't read enough and so why spend time reading something again?  But the effect of my Vonnegut re-read is making me question that a little bit.  There are books that I've said I'd like to go back and spend some more time with (2666 is the one that leaps to mind), but I don't know that I ever would have.  Now I'm reconsidering a little bit.  Maybe that will be a project for a future year.  Re-read one book per month that I've wanted to revisit?  Could be interesting.

So, do you ever re-read?  Never re-read?  What books would you revisit if the feeling struck you?

First Monday Book Day

Infinite Monday

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It seems somehow fitting that a number of us are attempting to read Infinite Jest just as the regular baseball season ends. With the Twins done for the year, we all have oodles of spare time on our hands, right?

Okay, okay, I jest.* I have to confess I don't yet have the book in my hands, but writing this post prompted me to at least order it. I don't know how useful background information is going to be, but I thought I'd at least hit a few main points.

Wallace lived from 1962-2008.** He was born in Ithaca, New York, and spent much of his childhood in Urbana, Illinois. During this time, he became a regionally ranked tennis player. He attended Amherst college and majored in English and philosophy. He went on to get a MFA*** in creative writing from the University of Arizona. His first novel, The Broom of the System, was published in 1987, while he was still in graduate school. Starting in 2002, he taught at Pomona College in Claremont, California.

Wallace began writing Infinite Jest in 1991. "I wanted to do something sad," he said in a 1996 interview**** given shortly after the book was published. "I'd done some funny stuff and some heavy, intellectual stuff, but I'd never done anything sad. And I wanted it not to have a single main character. The other banality would be: I wanted to do something real American, about what it's like to live in America around the millennium."*****

According to Ryan Compton's "Infinite Jest by the Numbers," Wallace used a vocabulary of 20,584 unique words to write the 577,608-word novel.

A quick search revealed that the Internet has no shortage of resources about either DFW or this book. I'm not sure how much I want to delve into these--part of me just wants to encounter the book on its own terms and see where that gets me. But if you're curious (or if I change my mind), here are a few that seem particularly informative.

The Howling Fantods: I have no idea what a fantod is, but this site boasts the following subheader "David Foster Wallace News and Resources Since March 97." The link I provided here will bring you specifically to the Infinite Jest section of the site.

Infinite Jest Wiki: This includes an index for the book along with explanations of key terms

And Like But So: A Character Guide to Infinite Jest: I have a terrible habit of reading only the first couple letters of a character's name and then skipping over the rest. In a novel with a lot of characters, this could pose a problem for me, so this site may be just what I need.

1997 Interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air

*Ouch. That's bad, even for me.
**I'm trying to figure out whether I should mention his death was due to suicide. I don't want it to overshadow everything else, so I guess I'll just acknowledge it here.
***an MFA(?)
****Did you have any idea Salon has been around that long? I'm pretty sure the first I heard of it was in 2000.
*****He apparently also had a thing for footnotes.

First Monday Book Day

How Not to Read a Book

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In bullet points:

  • notice Redeployment by Phil Klay has won the National Book Award and decide it’s really something you should read even though you tell yourself you’re not someone who likes books about war
  • request it from library only to have it ready for pickup months later when you’re already in the middle of another book
  • not to mention it's the busiest time of the year at work and you’re trying to do at least a little work most evenings
  • don’t start reading until the day before it’s due
  • find out that this is one of those books that grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go
  • keep reading
  • receive overdue notice from the library
  • check library website; see that there are 57 copies and 31 requests, so if you returned it you could probably get it again pretty soon
  • fear loss of momentum; keep reading
  • find this Q&A and become even more obsessed with finishing the book
  • pull out the book while standing on a crowded bus (because this is your only chance to read all day); a guy notices you, stands up, and gestures for you to take his seat; wonder if he is a vet
  • feel grateful because it really is much easier to read while not trying to avoid falling over every time the bus makes a turn; finish a story about a guy who really wants to find a whore; wonder if the guy would have still given you his seat if he knew it was for that

So what are you reading?

First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day

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A few thoughts.

Nebula Award nominees are out.  One pet peeve I have with SF/F awards is that so much is series-oriented.  This year 5 of the 6 nominees in the novel category are part of a series and one of them is book 7 in its series.  (To be fair, 2 of the nominees are the first book in the series) and so require an awful lot of someone who uses these awards as reading list fodder.  All that aside, I'm excited that The Three Body Problem was nominated.  I definitely plan to pick that one up at some point in the future, and I was always going to read Ancillary Sword given how much I liked the first book.

I read Player Piano as part of my ongoing passage through Kurt Vonnegut's novels.  It was pretty much as I remembered, not exactly what you think of when you think of Vonnegut, but so many of his consistent themes are right there from the very beginning.

I read some other stuff, but I'll save that for the comments.

Some good things that I found on the internet this month:

"Some Desperado" by Joe Abercrombie.  A short story title that should be read sarcastically.  It's a Western setting with a young woman trying to get away with the spoils of a robbery.

"Weary" by P.E. Garcia.  A quiet, but strong short story.  I'm not sure I can put my finger on why I liked this.  But I did.

"Pnin" by Vladimir Nabokov.  The short story that became the first chapter of the novel by the same name.  I actually read this a few years ago and loved it.  But then I came across this reading of it by Alexsander Hemon and I got to listen to it again.  I love the initial description of the title character and his situation.

First Monday Book Day

Bucket List Book

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Gravity's Rainbow was a "Bucket List Book" for me. We've all got "To Read" lists that are far too long, but even on those lists some of the books stand out. I've always been pretty good about working my way through them (I've loved the challenge ever since I took a Great Books class in college), but somehow even among the Bucket List Books, Gravity's Rainbow stood out. Maybe because I adore Pynchon, and this is considered his masterpiece. Maybe because it's notoriously difficult. Whatever the case, it was one of the biggies on my Book Reading Bucket List. And now, I'm glad I've read it. Even if I never really get it all.

I started Gravity's Rainbow in December. I finally finished Sunday night. 8 months it took me. Part of that was a function of some insanity in my life, but that added a couple months at most. Mostly it was that there were many days when I didn't pick it up at all, or when I did I would only read a page or two. I've had this experience with Pynchon before - when I read Against The Day - and like in that instance, finishing the book didn't necessarily leave me with an immediate sense of accomplishment. But I hope that experience proves instructive in a more important way.

When I read Against The Day I frequently felt lost as I read through it. Pynchon's prose can be extremely difficult. He gets lost in asides and transitions, and asides and transitions become the main story, main characters fade entirely from the story, minor characters jump back into essential roles, etc. I read ATD alone, and it was probably the biggest reading challenge I've ever faced. When I was done, I wasn't sure what I'd just finished. But as time passed, more and more things started to click. I feel like I really "get" ATD now. I don't feel that way about Gravity's Rainbow, but maybe in a few months I will. It's also worth saying that, having read both Against The Day and Gravity's Rainbow, that, right now at least, I feel like Against The Day is the better of the two. Gravity's Rainbow was Pynchon's first masterpiece, perhaps, but not his greatest. Maybe I'll feel differently, eventually, when I've had some time to sit with GR.

As for the content itself... My initial thoughts probably aren't worth much. I'm stunned. The ending was anti-climactic. My favorite character was a fairly minor person, I suppose. The protagonist, and indeed, the book, seemed to lack direction. A lot of that was on purpose, but it didn't change the maddening nature of the fact. I want to hear what others have to say about it. I want to sit down and talk about it. I feel like there's so much to be unpacked. It's a rare thing to read a book so dense, that so begs for conversation. I've got several dozen pages dog-eared to comment on. If others are willing, I'd be happy to jot down more specific thoughts in the comments.

For now, let me just say: I'm done. It is good to be done. It is a very good thing to be done with a Bucket List book.

So, how about it citizens? What have you been reading? What are your Bucket List books? Who wants to actually talk about Gravity's Rainbow? Pepper and DG (and others), are you ready for Pale Fire?

First Monday Book Day

First Monday Book Day: MN Book Awards Edition

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The Minnesota Book Awards took place last Saturday evening. It was amazing to be part of a gathering of nearly one thousand writers and other book people—I was struck by what a strong literary community our state has. I thought it might be fun to highlight a few of the winning books. For the full list, see here.  Continue reading First Monday Book Day: MN Book Awards Edition →

First Monday Book Day

How do you read?

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ebook

Once upon a time, a book was, to quote my friend Merriam-Webster, "a set of printed sheets of paper that are held together inside a cover." Of course now we can read books on phones, tablet computers, or dedicated e-reading devices (Kindle, Nook, Kobo, etc.). I've recently been curious about how the nation reads--both how you prefer to read and how you actually read. If you use some kind of electronic contraption for reading, do  you use it for all of your reading or only some? Continue reading How do you read? →