Pride and Prejudice at The Jersey Shore (and, Oh Yeah, The Daily Beast Calls Fiction Readers Stupid)

We try to stay above the fray here at TLM.  Really.  We rarely comment on headlines, except when they relate directly to the literary scene, which (it seems to us) happens less and less frequently.  And when I refer to the literary scene, I generally mean well-recognized prizes for established literary genius (see our recycled review of Nobel Prize Winner Mario Vargas Llosa's work, Pantaleon y Las Visitadoras here).  See how I did that?  I just recycled Vargas Llosa for the third time.  Priceless.

As for the would-be literary trolls, we try not to feed them.  I mean, have you heard so much as a peep from us about toddler Justin Bieber's upcoming memoir?  Not a one.  How about Snooki's pending contribution to the world's literary heritage?  Nada.  Though, I do fully expect that it will have all the girlish intrigue of Emma and the social commentary of a modern-day Pride and Prejudice.  Oh, I shouldn't have written that ... temptation too great ... but no ... I can't ... I shouldn't ... I can't help it .. oh what the hell? 

"All round chicks?" interjected Mr. The Situation laying aside his teacup.  "Yeah, I know a few.  But those bitties gots ta have skills in tequila slammin, booty bumpin and grindin, Jersey hairspray art, ID'n muscle cars, patchin up old wife beaters, mixin' protein shakes, and they gotta have a nose to avoid that gold-plating that leaves your neck green to be tagged all round in The Situation's book."

"Right on, brotha" agreed his faithful companion, Mr. Pauly D, most enthusiastically "And she gotta have a sweet booty to be tagged at all ... that goes without sayin'."

"Get lost," said Ms. Snooki, gently disagreeing with her companions, as she picked at a ribbon on her dress that had come unraveled.  "You two losers ain't know no chicks like that."     

Oh, I think I've got a best seller on my hands ... Pride and Prejudice at the Jersey Shore.  It would be like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, but a little less believable. 

Anyhow ... before I was so rudely taken on that Jersey Shore tangent, I sat down to tell our faithful readers that The Daily Beast (my favorite news aggregator and my home page) thinks that we and they are stoo-pid.  How so, you ask?  Well, in compiling its annual list of America's Smartest (and Dumbest) Cities, the editors at The Daily Beast took four factors into account as follows:

1.  The ratio of those holding undergraduate and advanced degrees to overall population (over 25);

2.  The ratio of institutions of higher education to overall population;

3.  The ratio of public libraries to overall population; and

4.  Population-adjusted figures for the purchase of non-fiction book titles.

Now, I have no real problem with the first three factors, though I have to say that public library figures seem outdated in the Digital Age.  But I have to seriously question the wisdom of focusing on non-fiction book sales at a time when many (if not most) of those titles are being put out by political pundits and (I kid you not) two of the top ten non-fiction best sellers this past week were "A**holes Finish First" by Tucker Max (if you do not know who this is, be thankful and let it go) and "Sh** My Dad Says" by Justin Halpern.

Does reading non-fiction make you smarter than reading fiction?  I ask not only because I think the answer is obvious, but because I fear that this is the decided point of view of most male readers ... and we're a small group as it is.  Why this bias against fiction, which at least at the higher echelons seems to be much more widely recognized, appreciated, and enduring than non-fiction?  Is it just another symptom of a global culture with ADD (seeking the sound bytes that non-fiction titles seem to provide) or is it something more deep-seated and sinister?

Please discuss.  Meanwhile, I'm going to get started on Pride and Prejudice at the Jersey Shore.

N.B. The Daily Beast's faux pas is compounded by the fact that its very name comes from the fictional newspaper in Evelyn Waugh's novel, Scoop.  Assuming that someone at The Daily Beast has actually read the novel and that the founders did not simply pick the name off of a Wikipedia entry, they too would appear to be among the stupid.

Ulysses at the Halfway Point, or Who's Buying the Next Round of Guinness? (No Seriously, Who?)

I suspect that my prior view of the work of James Joyce was very similar to most people's conception.  I remember picking up a copy of Finnegan's Wake from the public library in Dubuque, Iowa, where I was studying for the LSATs at the time, thinking that it was the perfect opportunity to delve into a literary classic and, perhaps, to learn a bit about my own Irish heritage beyond the holy and hereditary trinity that is the love of the drink, the written word, and all things green.  I remember just as clearly returning that volume only a week later, confused, dejected, and certain that its "classic" status depended entirely upon its impenetrability, coupled with the very human tendency to judge as genius anything that we feel that we cannot fully understand.  In short, I judged it as a complete fraud somewhat-lyrical, stream of consciousness relic of an age long past that had little to no applicability to my life.  I viewed anything written by Joyce with the same colored lens.

Then, earlier this year, my wife and I planned a trip to Ireland (my first, though I dare say not my last).  I generally endeavor to read some classic piece of literature from or about the region while I'm there, if only to pass myself off as intelligent while I'm getting sauced at the bar get a flavor for the local literary history.  And so, I decided to take another crack at Joyce.  But I hedged my bet by choosing Dubliners, a series of completely non-stream-of-consciousness short stories that depict the lives of ordinary people in and around Dublin at the turn of the Twentieth Century.  While I generally do not enjoy reading short story collections, I loved Dubliners and reviewed it in glowing terms here.  More importantly, I felt like I understood every word.  And, though I stepped away from Joyce for a bit, I vowed to return to his more complex works and give them another shot.

And so, about two months ago, I began reading Ulysses, Joyce's classic tale of everyday life in Dublin as superimposed on the wandering plot of Homer's epic, The Odyssey, which Joyce himself held in the highest esteem.  I tried hard to focus on the lyrical value of Joyce's prose, though I was often lost in its meaning, and I managed to follow the action through several chapters before I began to feel the old frustration starting to build.  It was at that point that I began to drink heavily and it all made sense began looking for outside help.  Now, I really do not like to make a habit of this.  Like many of you, I suspect, I like a classic work of literature to stand on its own.  If I have to go searching for meaning and enjoyment, then I begin to suspect that neither are truly there to begin with.  But I also hate to put down a classic once I've begun, and Google is just so damned convenient, and so I began to look a bit further afield.  The Internet alone sustained me through several more chapters, and I felt like I had an understanding of the structure of the work and its characters, if nothing else; but it still was not enjoyable.

Then I stumbled on a downloadable, college-level course on Ulysses by Princeton Professor James A.W. Heffernan.  I have listened to a few of these courses now on topics as diverse as classical music to Buddhism to anthropological study of the modern Maya, all of which have been produced and distributed by The Teaching Company.  To be perfectly honest, I find them somewhat hit and miss (though, to be fair, they are more than hit than miss).  If you are truly interested in a particular subject matter, they can be, not only worthwhile, but very entertaining.  Be forewarned, however: there is no getting around the dork factor, and you have to be willing to be labeled as such if and when you are caught listening by your friends and family.

Anyhow, the Ulysses course has changed my perspective on the work entirely.  I now recognize that without a working knowledge of either Anglo-Irish history or Homer's Odyssey and preferably both, no one is likely to take much away from the work other than its quirky characters and its lyrical prose, which is truly only scratching the surface.  I won't bore you with what I've learned--suffice it to say that the characters and the story have come alive on both a human and a mythic level.  Only approximately a third of the way through the course materials, I now not only look forward to reading the balance of Ulysses, but I want to return to the beginning to reread the tremendous amount of material that passed through my mind wholly unappreciated.

My question for all of you is this: is this a legitimate practice in the appreciation of works of literature?  Does the fact that a particular work requires explication make it more or less of a great work in your eyes?  And, finally, who's buying that next round?  Seriously, I'm all tapped out ...   

Shameless (but Timely) Recycling: Pantaleon y Las Visitadoras by Mario Vargas Llosa

Mario Vargas Llosa is, hands down, my favorite Latin American author, and I'm not just saying that because he won this year's Nobel Prize for Literature.  We here at TLM roundly praised his work earlier this year in a review of Pantaleon y Las Visitadoras--a tale of the efficient introduction of prostitution services into the Peruvian army.  He tells a good story, so I'm certain that his books may be appreciated in translation, but there is something about the rhythm and beautiful formalism of the language that makes him an especially enjoyable read in the original Spanish.  Both La Ciudad y Los Perros and La Fiesta del Chivo stand out in my memory as fantastic reads.  Congratulations to a true master and to all our Peruvian friends.  Pisco para todos! 

The Literate Man Is the New Haight-Ashbury, and (correspondingly) a Review of the Doors of Perception (Aldous Huxley)

Today is a day for rebellion and counterculture at The Literate Man, a day for disavowing the conformist decisions of the past and opening one’s mind to the essential “Is-ness” of all things and the limitless possibilities that the world has to offer to those that surrender to it. And it is in this spirit that I have decided to throw caution to the wind and abandon The Literate Man’s tried and true ten-point rating system. Ok, so maybe it’s not a rebellion per se, and maybe it has nothing at all to do with 60’s counterculture, but I have been paying attention to those voices that I most respect in the book blogosphere (you know who you are) and I can see the wisdom of moving off of a subjective rating system in favor of a more participatory conversation about the book or literary concept under discussion.

And how could I judge The Doors of Perception anyway when its basic message is that, in judging, in focusing our minds on the individual and particular aspects of a thing, we fail to see its essential, holistic nature. I really shouldn’t even be describing it as a book for, in doing so, I fail to appreciate the artistry of its cover design, the symmetry of the representational symbols within, the interwoven pulp of the page, and the elements, both natural and artificial, that have combined to make it what it is. Or in Huxley’s words:

--
I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation—the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.

“Is it agreeable?” somebody asked. (During this part of the experiment, all conversations were recorded on a dictating machine, and it has been possible for me to refresh my memory of what was said.)

“Neither agreeable nor disagreeable,” I answered. “It just is.”

Istigkeit—wasn’t that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? “Is-ness.” The Being of Platonic philosophy—except that Plato seems to have made the enormous, the grotesque mistake of separating Being from becoming and identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, have seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have perceived that what rose and iris and carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were—a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, a bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and yet self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.
--

Far out ... I know.

The Doors is not so much a book as an extended essay, which was coupled in my edition with Heaven and Hell, another extended essay, both of which treat the subject of the expanded psychological states that may be induced by the taking of mescaline. Mescaline, for the uninitiated, is the active ingredient in peyote and several other species of other hallucinogenic cacti. The Doors is essentially a chronology of events as understood and recorded by Huxley after having ingested mescaline at his home in West Hollywood in 1952. Heaven and Hell explores the cultural development of views of the afterlife as potentially influenced by drug-induced visions around the world.

Actually, the essays are surprisingly enjoyable and not just in the hippie burnout way that I’ve presented them here. As anyone who has read Brave New World will attest, Huxley is uber-intelligent, and he makes a very compelling case for taking a fresh new look at the world in which we live by removing the biological blinders that evolution and the survival instinct have saddled us with in order to ensure our continuance as a species. That he removes those blinders by means of the ingestion of a psychoactive agent (and spends much of the essay contemplating the folds of a skirt) is almost secondary. His real message is that we need to slow down, look around us, bond with the expressions of existence that we rush past every day, and come to a broader understanding of our own place within the universe.

Now who can argue with that?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes at The Literate Man, or Learning the Lessons of Blog Single Parenthood

I have been a bad blog parent.  I admit it.  It has been three weeks since I have posted anything of substance (see The Corrections, September 7) and even that was a middling review of a great book.  I am genuinely concerned that blog social services (a division of Google) will be knocking on my door at any moment, with an order to remove my TLM baby from my custody for neglect.    

The truth is that I have a very large case headed toward trial, and it is literally sucking the life out of me.  But that is no excuse--we all have our crosses to bear and most are much, much more burdensome than my own.  I do have to say that this whole blogging thing is much more time-intensive than I had imagined.  It is also much more rewarding, and I very much appreciate all the friendly connections that I have made as a result.  But I have determined that, if I go it alone, I run the risk of dropping off the map whenever a particular case blows up, which does tend to happen, that being the very nature of cases.

Fortunately, I have friends, and some of my friends happen to be men, and some of my friends that happen to be men happen to read (take that, reading gender bias).  Even better, they've agreed to stand by my side, to shoulder the burden, to carry the flame, to spread the word, and to continue the tradition of The Literate Man for as long as their hearts shall beat and their lungs draw breath. Or whenever they decide to stop.  Whatever.  Just kidding--I know that they're in for the long haul.

So, without further ado ... readership, Aaron and Greg ... Aaron and Greg, meet the readership.

[Begin Dating Game Theme Music]

Aaron is a business type and freelance writer from Miami.  His prior (super secret) TLM credits include the following: My Invented Country by Isabel Allende, To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway, and Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky.  His more recent (public) credits include Three Weeks with My Brother by Nicholas Sparks, Paris Trout by Pete Dexter, and The Spy Who Came in from the Cold by John le Carre (TLM obviously loves this book, having reviewed it twice, and with good reason).  In his spare time, Aaron wears funny t-shirts and enjoys libations of the barley, malt, and hops variety.

Greg is a lawyer type (though much more of a real lawyer than yours truly) and hails from our nation's capital, Washington, DC.  His contributions thus far include Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  A devoted father and hockey fan, Greg enjoys long walks to the DC Metro and cherry blossoms.

So, we here at TLM central will try to redesign and get up Top Five Books for Men listings for both Aaron and Greg as soon as possible (or as soon as they give them to me--guys?).  In the meantime, enjoy the variety.  I sure hope this bringing-in-the-responsible-uncles thing allows me to keep my baby.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold: Great Read In A Bomb Shelter

Patrick started us off on a Cold War bent a few weeks ago and since then it’s been nothing but bomb drills, Radio Free Europe, and non-stop Rocky IV marathons here at The Literate Man (TLM). If the Cold War was good for anything it was spawning an avalanche of spy novels. And the book that started it all, the epicenter of TLM's shameless Cold War nostalgia, was John le Carré ‘s The Spy Who Came In From the Cold.

This was the first le Carré Novel I had ever read. I have since picked up a second and could not agree more with Patrick’s spectacular praise for this book (thanks again to Patrick’s mom). After he sang its virtues I simply had to read it. And it was even better than I imagined.

This is not your father’s spy novel. There’s no run-away submarines, buxom Ukrainian agents or narrow avoidances of nuclear annihilation. This is a story about spies and spying and the horribly normal people who carried out this dirty war. And still, after nearly half century later, is the standard bearer for the spy novel.

Leamus, the main character in this book is an unassuming man of apparently extraordinary abilities. But he’s a simply a pawn in a bigger game who’s dimensions keep unfolding with every turn of the page. He is the focus of this book and while there are others involved (mostly his higher ups, the men pulling the strings on either side of the trenches) this is his story. Picture Graham Greene with a souped-up story line and a bit less focus on style and this is what le Carré has given us with in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.

That’s not to say that this is more poignant than Greene’s classic works or that they reach the reader on a deeper physiological level, it’s simply that this book is written on a far higher plain than almost every other spy thriller that it can only be compared to work like Greene’s (Greene himself had high praise for this book). And yet at the same time its plot twists are reminiscent of the most exciting books of this genre.

The characters couldn’t be more unassuming if they tried and it might sound crazy that a book with no action, boring characters and drab locales could be a spy thriller; it’s like the Seinfeld of spy novels: a book about nothing. But the pace zips in this story and aside for about an 8-page section in the middle where it seems as though le Carré ( a former spook and admittedly in the midst of a great deal of existential doubt in his personal life when he wrote this) slides into a bit of a rant, the prose is taught and the plot line even tighter. From first page to the last you are blinded by a cascade of double crossing that paints a much grander and undeniably absurd picture. As a whole this is not only a fast-paced and engaging plot it’s also a powerful commentary on the absurdities of the Cold War itself.

The highest praise for this book might be that it defies convention. It delivers the best of a fine piece of well-crafted literary fiction as well as the unorthodox, but nonetheless, racing plot of a thriller all in one. There is little doubt that you will walk away from this book feeling well satisfied.

9.5 out of 10

Paris Trout: A Ridiculous Name For Deadly Serious Man

There is something about the American South that makes it a space all its own in the literary world. Not many specific geographies in the world can lay claim to such a boast and certainly not many in the US. Indeed, the South seems to be its own breeding ground for the written word. Faulkner is known as the quintessential ‘Southern’ writer yet no one refers to Steinbeck as the ‘Californian’ writer or to Bellow as the “New York” writer even though place and setting are arguably as integral to their writing as Faulkner’s.

But by way of that lengthy and somewhat tangential lead-in, the latest of these Southern tales that I read was Paris Trout by Pete Dexter. Dexter is no Faulkner. He is what people like me imagine Faulkner should be. He is a deliberate and powerful writer who doesn’t always write nice things. But he writes truth. And that is not something you don’t find in so many books these days.

I’ve had this book for several years and I don’t know why it’s taken me so long to pick it up. Simply reading the dust jacket, adorned with praise such as “…masterpiece…”, “…breathtaking…” the winner of national book award should have been incentive enough to crack the spine. But when I finally did I was rewarded with a haunting and powerful novel that made a deep impression.

Dexter is an economical writer. The text is just 306 pages and it’s a small book, less than 300 words per page. It doesn’t take long to get through and it’s difficult to put it down once you start. But what Dexter does with these few leaves of paper is impressive. It ranks among the best work of ‘Southern Fiction’ I’ve ever read. And unlike Faulkner you won’t be bored to tears by the prose after 50 pages.

The eponymous main character of this book, Paris Trout, is an insane loan shark in a rural Georgia town. Dexter has created a monster and he just might be the most awful character I’ve found in a book in many years. He is truly a rotten person and he does rotten things. But the haunting sparseness of Dexter’s narrative makes Trout’s actions even worse. There is power in the plainness of his voice that makes this book penetrating on a very deep physiological level.

Trout murders a young black girl in 1950’s small town Georgia and shoots another woman over a fender bender and missing car payments. He is then put on trial and judged by a group of his peers. The account of what follows captures everything that was, and perhaps still is, awful about the segregation South.

There is no redemption; only ugly reality. One of the other principal characters in Dexter’s dark ride down Jim Crow lane is his powerful white attorney, Harry Seagraves. He is no Atticus Finch and this story has nothing resembling the warmth of To Kill A Mocking Bird. In this small town tale there are few threads of decency and we’re made accurately aware of this as we see a series of inexcusable involving Trout's estranged wife Lucy.

Dexter does a masterful job unfolding this story through actions and impressions of these three principal characters. In fact, he does such a terrific job of building up the characters and conflict in the first half of the book that the final resolution is somewhat of a letdown. Nonetheless, this book is poignant, moving, unforgiving, and at times unpleasant. And it’s also completely mesmerizing. Without a doubt one of the most impressive bits of fiction about early the early 20th century South that you will find.

9.0 out of 10