The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga (12/09)

This was much better than I'd expected.

The Last Mughal by William Dalrymple (12/09)

Read this on the train back from Calcutta to Delhi, feeling sick most of the way. It's the best Dalrymple book I've read yet. I'm now reading White Tiger--might as well go through the white person in India's booklist.

The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson (12/09)

Picked up this copy in one of those snazzy kiosks in the Vishwavidyalaya metro station, a poor life decision, the chance to put off paper writing for the two days it took to get through all 800 or so pages. Melissa lost respect for me, or pretended to, but it's a fuck's sight better than traipsing around India with Shantaram or William Dalrymple. The first Wheel of Time novel since maybe Lord of Chaos to call riveting. Sorry Robert Jordan, this project should have been taken from your hands years ago (though perhaps not wrested by death, as it happened). No more Wheel of Time as thick, Tolstoyan description, thank God. This was fun, dumb fantasy.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman (11/09)

This wasn't any good.

On reconsideration, it was alrite.

Goodbye, Columbus by Philip Roth (11/09)

Bought this old copy in a Pokhara bookshop for 105 Nepali rupees. Read it back in Delhi, falling asleep, on the metro, in rickshaws. 

Who's ready to grow up. Neil is. I'm worthless.

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (11/09)

City of Joy by Dominique Lapierre (10/2009)

Stupid Christian preening, with a lot of general research. Delhi, Varanasi, and the Annapurna Circuit. Abandoned in a Danaque guest house.

City of Djinns by William Dalrymple (10/2009)

On the Annapurna Circuit.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (09/09)

Women are nursemaids to arid, egotistical men. Spare our egos, oh ambiguous mothers with your mercurial, unnamable emotions, your weird, fluid perceptions of homey objects and their significances of feminine loss and ambivalence.

Any dinner table is a battleground of submerged moods. I ask for such pittances—be my ally in mollifying Mr Tansley’s wounded preening—and am frustrated. I want only to examine the lovely, symbolically fraught topography of the fruit bowl, but my spitting demon of a little girl snatches a pear and ruins the ensemble!

What do you feel I feel about my husband’s tyrannical feelings? Answer in wet metaphor.

Heavy sea musk stains the draperies in the shifting flow of seasons. See me write about absence.

He wanders the beaches seeking philosophic consolation in tidepools and the dumb white fringed humps of waves, while Mrs Van Beek's stout, aged ass rests itself on a barstool after a day's knocking about in cupboards dusting his collected editions of this or that.

The Age of Kali by William Dalrymple (08/09)

India: A Wounded Civilization by V. S. Naipaul (07/09)

Dated, dated. Beautifully written, but dated. India’s problems are a product of primordial, stagnant ‘Hinduism’, which accommodates a millennium of invaders with quietism, passivity, and religious resignation. ‘Hindu culture’ is held to be a thing, a step or two above the African night, but well short of Western can-doism, the flux of modernity, of civilization, that Europe defines. I’m reading this beside Said’s Orientalism: how far we have come in only 30 years, perhaps because of Said’s seminal essay? See how scholarship matters.

But I picked up some history along the margins: the Emergency, of course, and the India-Pakistan and India-China wars, too.

This country is weirder than I could have expected. Where else do people threaten to immolate themselves in protest of the Miss World beauty pageant being held in Bangalore?

The Human Stain by Philip Roth (07/09)

My last Roth for a while. Time to move on to non-fiction. Remedy some of my ghastly ignorance.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner (07/09)

So that's why Faulkner's famous.

Sabbath's Theater by Philip Roth (07/09)

Roth is not an economical writer. His paragraphs meander from association to association. He starts off discussing one character in the present and ends analyzing the death of another character's mother thirty years ago. Scenes are repeated throughout the book with slightly different emphasis. Time and perspective are in constant flux. This is especially true of later Roth, 1990s' Roth, which is when, in his 60s, he came into his own.

Also, you're never at a loss to identify the 'idea' of a later Roth novel. He repeats his thesis over and over, as he did in American Pastoral. The only unity in the life of Mickey Sabbath is incoherency. There are no explanations.

Hunger by Knut Hamsun (06/09)

A talented, arrogant young man wanders around the Norwegian capital attempting to write philosophical articles for local periodicals, having absurd run-ins with people on the street, and gradually starving to death. One by one, the young man's ideals are stripped away by means of the hunger - his moralizing fades, his presumptions dwindle down to occasional outbursts. He is a more tolerable person by the end of the novel. The book resembles Crime and Punishment in many ways, but less convoluted and messy and with no didactic moralizing lurking under the prose. An elegant thing, but less stirring for all its being well-crafted.

Zuckerman Bound by Philip Roth (06/09)

Three novels and a novella collected in a single volume documenting minutia in the life of Nathan Zuckerman, infamous Jewish-American novelist, the most narcissistic project I have ever read, but not bad for all that. Roth is upfront about only being inspired to write about slight variations on his own experience. He is a writer, exclusively, of the internal. The outside world only matters as far as it impacts his inner life. The best of the four was Zuckerman Unbound - the best written, the funniest, the most acerbic. The Anatomy Lesson goes on and on about Zuckerman's undiagnosed chronic pain, which he relieves with vodka, pot, painkillers, and passive fucking. The pain would be a cheap metaphor worthy of English Lit 101 if Zuckerman, being the writer he is, didn't constantly mull over its symbolic significances - the pain is his guilt for exposing his family in best-selling novels, it's the wound of an estranged brother or the presence of his mother's ghost, etc. The Ghost Writer was irritating, and Roth's trademark bon mots (so dry as to be dessicated) felt strained.

My Life as a Man by Philip Roth (05/09)

I gave my copy to Liz, and she's taken it to Brooklyn to begin her post-collegiate life. I'm not absorbing one tenth of what's been happening to me these past days, and I realize that's the most narcissistic possible spin I could put on ending college, saying goodbye to Liz, and leaving the country.

Protagonist is a recent Brown grad with writerly ambitions, high moral seriousness, and licentious proclivities. The narrative is how all that is wrung from him in a single, hellish relationship. In short, literary porn.

Dissipated

The rest of that semester, which just ended, dissipated into a much-advertised haze of depression and booze. I barely read what I was assigned, much less anything extracurricular. I've finished packing the new volumes into my home bookshelf, into every possible cranny, and I'm much too lazy to fish them out again and see which ones I've yet to write up. They were clearly not too memorable.

Nothing extracurricular, with one important exception. I read a phenomenal amount of comics, mostly "mature themed." I read the entire oeuvre, or near enough, of several writers, and devoured five-year series in a single day. Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, consists of roughly 1,440 pages, a massive creative effort that spans some ten trade paperbacks, and I finished the entire work in less than twenty-four hours. Binge reading, to keep my mind off work and despondency. Let's see, I read the better part of Garth Ennis' work (and the man is prolific), quite a bit of Ed Brubaker, Grant Morrison's many projects, including that wonderful, mockable thing called The Invisibles, a few of Warren Ellis' endless efforts, including Planetary, Fell, Desolation Jones, etc., and probably a few other writers whom I can't remember without plugging in my external hard drive. Understand, I read so many comics that I already cannot recall the names of writers whose entire career I either read or heavily sampled. Series with multiple authors included Hellboy, The Authority ("Well, it was inevitable," Will said upon hearing), and various Marvel Ultimates. I believe I have concluded this period in my life. While I may still read comics, I won't scour the internet for scanned downloads, then lose sleep and eyesight scrolling through them compulsively, addictively, in such a way that I cannot remember much of the plot afterward. I'm already back to my Philip Roth, whom I enjoy in the most self-centered way. Expect trenchant analysis.

Oh yeah, Mike Carey. I read loads of Mike Carey. Want to guess how long it took me to read the 7o or so issues of Lucifer? But christ, what he does to Constantine. It's the most fucked-up world of the imagination I've encountered in a while, and John Constantine should be put down in a mercy killing. God, Carey, you have to lift the fuckers up before you send them down to hell. It can't be hell all-fucking-day. Lucifer was fun. Carey's Hellblazer was just miserable. Ennis' recipe for salvation (in the face of testosterone-dripping ultraviolence) is a round of drunken BS with the blokes. Writers are a funny lot, a little touched.

02/09-03/09

These were for the seminar U.S. in World Politics. Because of time constraints, I either read only portions or skimmed through sections.

"A Problem From Hell": America and the Age of Genocide by Samantha Power

I used images from Power's account to write a song that, by now, my friends are all sick of hearing about. I also wrote an eight-page paper that left a lot to be desired.

Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy by Charlie Savage

Don't be put off by the pundit-friendly title - this is good legal reporting for the layperson. Strange to be reading histories of events I remember. I already knew most of this simply because I've followed the news for the last five years.

The Looming Tower: Al-Qaeda and the Road to 9/11 by Lawrence Wright

History-as-novel. Emphasis on narrative and characterization and plot. Accomplished effectively because of the extensive research that undergirds the writing. The sort of book I might like to write some day.

Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World by Dennis Ross

Interesting inside view of U.S. statecraft from a high-level practitioner. He comes with all the expected presumptions: the U.S. should continue to support Israel, Iran cannot acquire nuclear weapons, etc. Still a valuable book - the man has nuance. Why does contemporary non-fiction have to sport such banal titles? Ready-made for the Border's bestseller discount table, I suppose.

The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy by Pietra Rivoli

Basic, straightforward. Will surprise no one who has ever thought about the effects of globalization beyond laissez-faire messianism. Still interesting for its rich storytelling, though. A layperson's anthropological study of the individuals involved in "globalization." God, these little summaries suck. All I can manage at the moment.

Dead As Dreams by Weakling (02/09)

This is not a book, but I haven't been so excited by an album in a long time. Mostly, I'm here to complain about other people who write about metal. They're idiots. I suppose Weakling is brutal, nightmarish, "insane," all that, but that's what's said about every metal band in existence—and not really the point with Weakling, it seems. Ignoring the lyrics (which I haven't read and don't want to), the album is wonderfully universal, expressing common themes of pain, sadness, struggle, loss, and maybe anger. It's very lovely, really. But I'm nowhere near ready to write a review of the music. Just this—metal deserves better listeners.

Ever notice how musicians are uniquely bad at discussing music?

The Sorrows of Young Werther by Goethe (01/09)

Alternate title: Good Riddance to Werther

I was supposed to read this a long time ago, when I was at that unfortunate stage of male adolescence in which one is a Romantic and compulsively rhapsodizes Nature and one's Soul, and maybe also Women.

But really, the world can do without an absurd, childish member of the gentry idolizing the peasants into pastoral totems of Simplicity and Work, or whatever the bullshit is.

Or slathering his pathetic yearnings on others' lives. God, I'd kill the fuck myself. If only they could arrange their suicides so they could fall into an open grave, or trip into the crematory—erase yourself with some self-respect, for God's sake, and don't trouble others. Make it seem an accident and spare your family the rage and betrayal, if not the presumed anguish. But above all, shut the fuck up about it—Werther is a towering, shameful monument to failing that commandment.

Меня бросила. Вертер—пошёл на хуй.

And in a breathtaking feat of projection, I can say: bullshit, that Lotte's "secret heart's desire was to keep [Werther] for herself" (118). Debase yourself so regularly, and receive your just wages: distance and contempt. Only have the decency to off yourself earlier and more discreetly.


The most perfect coda: this should have been the whole of Werther's suicide letter.

'Though sad to say, I must report that Eros was a bust.
I'll seek my peace in bleaker fields—to Thanatos, I must.'

Hitman, Chronicles of Wormwood by Garth Ennis (01/09)

Are you tired of Garth Ennis' war stories yet? Is it possible to be? This run concludes one long, compulsive winter break of comics.

Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowery (01/09)

This book needs at least three readings: one for the plot, another for the layering, and a third for the lyricism. Nearly all books benefit from multiple readings, but not much popular literature truly demands it. My copy's introduction notes that Lowry uses a sort of statuesque prose style:

This is syntax as architecture, a strained high baroque: it is not to be understood so much as unpacked and paraphrased. It is 'vertical', balanced, stilled in time, not 'horizontal', in flow.

I don't object to that on any grounds - theoretical, aesthetic, whatever - but it makes the reader work for his pleasure. Sometimes the reader wants nothing more than a Philip Roth marital disaster. Straight-forward misery, that is.

Preacher, Hellblazer by Garth Ennis (01/09)

Three days in a cave with well-written ultraviolence, an addict's need for narrative, debasing. Ugh.

Surprising no one, Garth Ennis kills God...

...and then has John Constantine flip off Satan.

Meanwhile, I finish off another Saturday night in typical fashion.

League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vols. 1 & 2, The Black Dossier by Alan Moore (01/09)

Fucking delightful - the world of the imagination, written for adults. Also, lots and lots of sex - fairy sex, people sex, immortal sex, goddess sex, immortal-goddess sex, Lilliputian sex, giant sex, bear-man-gypsy sex, invisible dude sex, etc. The only bad sex, really, is when James Bond tries to rape an 80-something-year-old woman, only to get bricked in the face. "Gratuitous!" shriek the latter-day Puritans at Amazon.com, who remain exactly what they are despite more fashionable rationalizations.

Moore helped usher in the age of pitch black comics in the 80s. Now he's resurrected adventuring, the way a middle-class "lad" of Victorian England might read Henry Morton Stanley and stare at the blank space on the map of Africa (graci, Conrad; literature supplants my own memories). Only absent the imperial fuckery, you know. The idea that there are places worth discovering, that the getting there will be an adventure, that the destination will be sufficient apotheosis. And once there, you get to have an orgy, which somehow comes off the way we envision these things in our very few moments of optimism. So, yes. Made for me. Can't help but react as expected. There are mountains in Asia.

Samplings:

First page of a Tijuana Bible from Airstrip One.

Sick of this shit happening in stories, man. "tt" indeed.

The best greeting in literature. Alan Moore and I, prurient little fucks—we deserve each other.