I came across a post this post by David Bordwell about the merits and feasibility of film criticism (via Andrew Seal on Google Reader), and this quote leapt out at me:

Forget about becoming a film critic. Become an intellectual, a person to whom ideas matter. Read in history, science, politics, and the arts generally. Develop your own ideas, and see what sparks they strike in relation to films.

The same certainly applies to the best book critics. I admire The New York Review of Book’s much-delayed book reviews because they’re always written with a wide lens, one that scoops relevant comparisons in art, film, history, and modern politics.

It’s terribly difficult to write reviews like that—much easier to simply discuss the book at hand in a hermetic (lol, nearly wrote hermeneutic and had to look it up in the dictionary) analytical bubble.

And here’s where I justify my blog silence by reassuring you that I’m reading too widely to comment on what I’m reading.

I really don’t have the stamina for all that.

First off, GoodReads* is telling me that I only rated 9 books with 5 stars in the past year, and I’d say that only a third of those were published in 2009. So I guess I’m gonna talk about those three books.

Secondly, how are people my age writing best of the decade lists?! 10 years ago, I was 15 and reading God-knows-what. Probably textbooks, because I did that kind of thing for fun back then. And Dean Koontz, because I am from the suburbs. So that means I’ve only had about 5-6 years with an awakened literary sensibility, and that simply isn’t enough time to read a decade’s worth of books  and make a knowledgeable pronouncement on the Best Books of the Decade.

So you are getting, oh, My Three Favorite Books Published in 2009. Based on a sample pool of Seven Books Read That Were Published in 2009. Enjoy!

The Hakawati
by Rabih Alameddine

How have none of you read this book? I know you haven’t read this book, because there are only 151 ratings on GoodReads. Is it because it’s set in Lebanon? Is it because the jacket, while stunning, looks kinda girly? Is it because you saw it marketed as “a retelling of the Arabian Nights for the modern age” and dismissed it like so much Amy Tan? WHY?

THIS BOOK JUST READS SO WELL.

It’s like…a Lebanese Brothers Grimm, replete with inspired retellings of the Arabian folk tale canon. But it’s also a moving story about leaving home for America. And shedding one’s ethnic skin. And then trying to put it back on. And dying fathers. If you’re home for the holidays without a book (yeah, right—I don’t know anyone who isn’t going home with 10+ books), I urge you to bring home The Hakawati. Reading it is like crawling into a cave made out of paisley velvet. That is the best simile I can come up with.

Never Learn Anything From History
by Kate Beaton

I don’t know how you feel about web comics, but I’m sure you weren’t thinking, “Historical figures in historically accurate situations, but speaking hilariously.”** That’s what Kate Beaton does.

Also, to her credit, this collection of her best comics made me want to read up on my history. This is a big deal. I’ve studiously avoided history class since my sophomore year of high school. How did I get this far in life with absolutely no concept of American or world history? By studiously avoiding any conversation about facts. I mean, take this blog, for example. There is not one fact in the whole of it.

Asterios Polyp
by David Mazzuchelli

I think I’ve written about this graphic novel before. I cannot emphasize to you enough that this graphic novel is the apex of what a graphic novel can achieve. I should have received this book as a prize for completing my senior course in “The Graphic Novel.” The professor should have given it to me and said, “Pam, now you are ready.”

Anyway, that’s it for me. Care to share your top three? Lengthy justifications not required.

*I’m noticing that as I enter my late 20s—horrors!—I’m increasingly relying on external sites to do the mental record-keeping for me. Just like my poor compy, I’m running out of memory.

**Except for Beaton’s wordless depiction of Napoleon eating a cookie. Perhaps not historically accurate. But would that it were so!

“Bliss and Grief”

No one

is here

right now.

If the Bolaño backlash augured by The New Yorker’s “Book Bench” materializes, it will not be because readers have revolted against the novel (though there are readers whom the book leaves cold) but because they have revolted against a particular narrative being told about it.

Tangentially, I’ve been thinking about the ways in which we rebel against our own constructions, especially vis-a-vis (and I say this with a cringe) The Office. I watched the wedding episode the other night, and I can’t stand to watch the saccharine wordplay between Jim and Pam anymore. On the other hand, aren’t I (and my ladypeers) responsible for Jim and Pam’s success? Didn’t we ask for this nerdy-romance plotline? If so, why does it disgust me so?

5. “My writing is a picture of the mind moving.”—Philip Whalen

9. “Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
(I am large. I contain multitudes.)”—Walt Whitman

15. Notice what you notice.—Allan Ginsberg

40. Maximum information, minimum number of syllables.—Allan Ginsberg

74. “Speech synchronizes mind & body.”—Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche

From The Huffington Post’s sometimes aggravating, sometimes fascinating, always worth-reading book blog.

Upon coming up from the cafeteria, the elevator doors opened on our floor, and a co-worker and I get out. Orhan Pamuk gets on. When the elevator doors had closed, both of us start shrieking:

“AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!”

“WHOOOOAAAAAAA!!!!!”

An editor passes by and sees us in the midst of our hysteria. “Who was that? A rock star?” she asked. “Nope,” we replied. “It was Orhan Pamuk.”

[Edit] It has been been brought to my attention that we did not, in fact, wait until the doors were closed before shrieking. To which I say, “Oops.”

Taken from this lovely post on 43 Folders. At the recommendation of the blogger, I picked up my unread copy of Jack Hart’s A Writer’s Coach (yes, the to-read pile is still bigger than the have-read pile). Against the recommendation of the blogger, I will likely read this book instead of writing on this blog. Hopefully you readers out there will take me as your worst-case example: don’t be like me! Close your browser’s open tabs, except for the one with your WordPress dashboard!

I also like how this one site sums up Articles 9 and 10 of the “Sacred Doctrine” essay by writing:

1) God made the world;
2) The world is God’s book; and
3) The book is made of symbols.

That’s so Dan Brown-y.

If I can make it through this, word on the street is that I will have gained some knowledge about literary theory. We shall see!

For the past month, my friend Meredith and I have attempted to read short stories. Exclusively. Our thoughts and occasional moments of despair are chronicled here.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming!