Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011 by Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee

What strikes me the most about this short collection of letters is how discreetly it came and went through the literary radars, and how little notice it received from reviewers.  I must admit that the entire volume strikes as (for the lack of a better term) fabricated, but this is something that is openly accepted on the dust-jacket summary of the book.  Paul Auster (the great, white Jewish one) approached J.M. Coetzee about engaging in open-ended letters, topics as varied as the open world and not limited to literary matters.  Thus begins a conversation between these two literary giants that is at once trivial as it is insightful.  I know, I know... the typical polite self-contradictory description used by many when they cannot commit themselves to make an assessment resembling either/or.  Yet, the more I read, the more engaged I became.  Rarely does one see a collection of letters of varied topics such as the nature of sports, incest in literature, death and living, parenthood, statistics, art, politics and history in the Middle East, etc.  I found many of the discussions trivial, yes, but the real revelatory moments more than made up for the investment.

What happens in collections of letters is that the reader 1) expects a long period of correspondence, and 2) correspondence that in some ways encapsulates the events of the day, at that time, as they are occurring.  My last experience with "the letters of..." was that of "The Collected Letters of James Wright," a book I often refer back to, looking randomly at underlined passages for their powerful content, and mere brutality of description.  I don't foresee myself the same with "Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011" but I am glad I got to read something new by Paul Auster (sorry, Mr Coetzee) because he's the one and only for me.  I don't engage in hero-worship, not in sports or politics or history, and certainly not in literary matters (with the aforementioned exception, of course).

One passage that struck me as perhaps the most important is that of Paul Auster explaining his reservations about electronic readers.  Auster is honest about being a technophobe, and at the same time not being against electronic readers due to the fact that they promote the act of reading, and anything that does that should be encouraged.  Where things go awry (and I confess that, as an opponent of electronic readers, I never looked at it this way) is the flexibility of the technology to "destroy" the impermeable, hard object.  Auster explains: "On the other hand, I do have certain fears. (Fears, by the way, already borne out by the destruction of the music business. How I miss browsing in record shops!) Amazon, which has so far cornered the market here, is selling books at too low a price, is in fact taking a loss with each book it sells in order to woo the public into buying the machines. One can foresee dire consequences in the long term: the collapse of publishing houses, the death of bookstores, a future in which every writer is his own publisher. As Jason Epstein pointed out in an article in the New York Review [of Books] some months ago, it is absolutely essential that our libraries be maintained, since they are the bedrock of civilization. If everything went digital, think of the possible mischief that could ensue. Erased texts, vanished texts, or, just as frightening, altered texts."  This last prediction was one I never thought about.  It is, indeed, frightening.  As for Epstein's plea about the libraries, the same thing goes.  I used to believe that libraries were exempt from the threat of electronic text/readers until I visited the newly restored main campus library at the undergraduate college I graduated from.  The library is not almost entirely stripped of books in the second and third floor.  There are all sorts of "reader friendly" areas but most people are engaged in the use of computers rather than the act of reading itself.  I was waiting for a friend who was attending a class at the time and went for a walk, an investigating journey to see what the library had been transformed to.  My shock was severe when I entered the third floor to notice all the periodicals (peer-reviewed journals and popular magazines) were gone, scanned in part and now available in micro-strip.  I cannot recount the hours I spent there as an undergraduate when, left alone on campus with nowhere to go during breaks, I would pick random bounded volumes of "Time Magazine" from the 1920s and just past the pages (as well as the hours).  The third floor currently houses a great number of pseudo-offices (more like encapsulated cubicles) for para-professionals offering tutoring services, and, housing support professionals with important sounding titles like "Assistant Director of Student Achievement."  But I digress.  Imagine an electronic text of "Moby-Dick" in which the thinly-veiled homo-erotic scene of Ishmael and Qeequeg tossing in bed at the Nantucket inn is turned explicit by someone with a hyper-sexual imagination bordering on the pornographic... or a "Crime and Punishment" where Raskolnikov is able to make it to America as a stowaway and works himself through the ranks of Wall Street and into American financial "respectability."  Hard to imagine that happening?  Really, just browse Wikipedia for an hour and see for yourself.

I don't expect to agree with Paul Auster on every topic.  Even with my admiration of his work, I know enough to separate the man from the artist.  I confess I find his excessive criticism of conservatism (here in America and in Israel) a bit on the simplistic side.  That is to say, at the point where the subject is broached, Auster sounds like a blind liberal, a person that as soon as the term "conservative" or "right-wing" is mentioned in conversation, all bets are off and the engagement on ad hominems and hasty generalizations of all sorts is fair game.  I hold that type of liberalism and conservatism at a distance.  I've been on both sides of the political spectrum, and find myself disgusted by both in ways that are both irreparable and final.  What I see happening in political discourse is painful (even more painful when it comes from someone as intelligent as Auster)... the whole idea that someone will find Fox News irritating, despicable, dishonest and nauseating but just as well find MSNBC the pinnacle of intelligence and decorum makes me weep in silence for the idiocy of this country.  I don't watch television and only collect news items from the international press.  The American press is a cesspool of misinformation and unethical brain-washing on both sides of the political spectrum.  Those who see evil at the mention of George W Bush are the same sheep who can find no fault with Barack Obama despite his many violations (many of which, the overseas use of drone, is far worse than Bush... but of course, I will be accused of being a victim of right-wing propaganda).  Nobody is perfect, but both sides are equally rotten.

J.M. Coetzee is an enigma to me.  I believe I've read a few of his essays but none of his books.  I am eagerly awaiting my next trip to the bookstore.  Certainly his most famous titles are in order.  If anyone could recommend a title to start off with, please let me know.  I am more than intrigued.  I find him sensible and deeply honest in all and any of the topics these two giants engage in in the course of their correspondence.

It's a short and almost predictable little book, but "Here and Now: Letters 2008-2011" will not disappoint.

The (Agonizing) Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt, part 002

I mentioned earlier how much I wanted this novel to be good, to be excellent. I think I ended up putting the carriage before the horse. This novel was just about everything but good. If I may be humble, the reason behind my harsh review might just be my inability to understand the undercurrents of this novel. I love everything I have read from Siri Hustvedt, and I went into this book with high expectations. The problem for me was more of the same, the same of what I explained in the previous entry for this novel. I lost most of my time trying to figure out where and when had all the characters come in, or bailed out. The second half of the novel was a touch and go of subplots and retrospective visions that seemingly fell flat. The protagonist's relationship with Miranda, however, proves to be one of the best elements of the entire novel. While the protagonist, Erik Davidsen, is obviously erotically attracted to Miranda, his tenant/artist/friend, the suspense regarding their relationship is kept at growing expectations throughout. He "plays" family with Miranda and her daughter, Eggy. Miranda's ex-husband comes into the picture with stalker-like behavior. He collects several pictures of Erik which he later uses for a public exhibition of his work. I found it masterful the fact hat Hustvedt did not allow the relationship to reach the expected result that, at least for the reader, would have been convention. Miranda and Erik do not end up together.

Along with all of this, there is a trip to Minnesota (Erik's hometown) to try and find out details about his father's past. His companion on this trip is his sister, Inga, a character with her own set of particularly disturbing problems (widow to a "cult" like writer named Max). At any rate, in Minnesota they find a person who seemingly knows the past. The past for these Minnesotan women was being "told" in a series of homemade dolls--highly detail and lifelike albeit the size. Some of the dolls are for general consumption, but there are "pieces" called "The Legacy Pieces" that are not allowed to be viewed by anyone, not even the caretaker of the elderly woman who makes the dolls. Along with that sub-plot, there's another smaller sub-plot developing Erik's "no attachment" relationship to a longtime friend. While the relationship sub-plot is only touched lightly, these scenes appear cliche-ridden, and, most problematically, underdeveloped and drawing, not adding to the general plot. In addition, Inga and her daughter Sonia are fighting the release of letters written by Inga's late husband, a situation/problem that includes its own set of personae dramatis. This includes an old friend of both Inga and Erik, a poor man who suffers from hyperhidrosis, a restless reporter, a has-been movies star with whom Max had had an affair and fathered a son, and a hard, self-interest biographer of Max that ends up in bed with Inga.

In the last few segments of the novel, the flashback/fast-forward technique blurs the path to a satisfactory resolution, and the end, when it comes, feels anti-climatic.

Another reading of this novel would yield (perhaps in the future) a better understanding of what Hustvedt intended to do. Right now, I have to push forward with my reading list, and with the end of the summer session just a few days away, I cannot sit down to decipher the many issues herein.

The (Agonizing) Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt, part 001

I keep telling myself, "there's nothing wrong with this novel, there's nothing wrong with this novel." The reason, if I have any at all, is the fact that I loved "What I Loved," and "A Plea for Eros" so much it's becoming increasingly difficult for me to realize I am reading the same author. "The Sorrows of an American" is a confusing labyrinth of characters and voices, temporal abstractions (not the ones italicized), and shifts within the plot (more than just a plot within the plot). All of this combined makes this novel a valiant effort, but an effort nonetheless.

If Ms. Hustvedt tried to exercise her knowledge of the surreal in writing, she has succeeded without parallel. The problem stems from the fact that the average reader (myself) does not read exclusively for surrealism, with or without specific order. Now, Ms. Hustvedt is married to Mr. Paul Auster, and despite risking making an unfair connection or allusion, I have to say that I somehow can digest his surrealism but not Ms. Hustvedt. Having said that, I tried and tried and tried to get into the story, to think through the events and study carefully the abstractions. One thing that also made it difficult for me was my inability to recognize a "flashback" versus what Ms. Hustvedt seems to be attempting. Firstly, there's the question of the narrator/protagonist. It takes a great effort to discern that the person "talking to us" is a man. I suspect that the first sentence has something to do with the general sense of the novel: "My sister called it 'the year of secrets'" and from there the first fifteen pages are filled with family details, secrets, the recent loss of a patriarch, letters from his/her father to a lover no one knew about, and an excellent display of Norwegian phrases and how the do not translate well literally into English. I understand that a novel whose premise is a "year of secrets" would eventually resemble this narrative form, but it's nearly impossible to 1) hold the emotional tension a secret helps develop (sort of the holding of the breath), and 2) follow all the shifts in direction, voice, etc.

I will nevertheless recommend Ms. Husdvedt's work, "The Sorrows of an American" included. Reading this novel made me realize my deficiencies in understanding the variants and complexities of fiction writing. Heck, I can't even write intelligently about it.

Objectives

I did very well reading over the weekend primarily because I stopped everything and read all day Saturday. Now, of course, I am paying for it. It is not only painful to be so few pages from ending "A Plea for Eros," but also to be so close to finishing and so over-loaded with work as a result of my little "Saturday of joy." Siri Hustvedt really does have an excellent mind; she is bright and knowledgeable and really doesn't have to strain to come across pleasant. The problem--as I pointed out earlier--is that she is fixated on the "I" too much. The personal essay is an art form, and to master it one has to really not so much master the art of writing personally, but mostly to detach ourselves from the "I" and treat the subject. I am personally terrible at doing so, and as a result my personal essays sound over-stuffed and conceited. I do have to say that Hustvedt's treatment of "The Great Gatsby" is one of the most enlightened essays on the topic I have read. I teach Gatsby almost every year in a Survey of the American novel, and I have read a great deal of literary analysis on it. Hustvedt's analysis of the word "vitality" and Fitzgerald's use to describe Myrtle Wilson is outstanding. I have no idea how many times I have read the novel and didn't really notice the use of the word.
Two days away from starting NaNoWriMo and even through I have a little bit of an idea as to where I am going, I am afraid it will fry itself out of steam once I start. They say that the first few days are the most difficult--we'll see how it goes. And again, I have tons of work to get to from school. Let us pray!

"A Plea for Eros" by Siri Hustvedt

Well, I finished with Maureen Corrigan's book the other day and jumped right into "A Plea for Eros" by Siri Hustvedt. She is married to Paul Auster, which happens to be my favorite contemporary writer. I also read "What I Loved" earlier this year and it was a book I enjoyed. I got "A Plea for Eros" based on a very bad review she got on The New York Times. I found the review fascinated me and made me look out for the book even more. So, I got it and put it in my reading list for the year, and let me just say that the review was right about how centered this book is. While this is a book of essays, and Ms. Hustvedt is an amazing writer, it seems that she forgot the cardinal rule of essay writing (even the personal essay), and that is treat the subject/topic, not how you see the subject/topic. To be sure, there are times when the personal pronoun can't be avoided altogether, but in her case it is just a matter of having overdone it. Again, I enjoy her writing tremendously--"What I Loved" is a magnificent book, but the NYT reviewer (who wrote about Ms. Hustvedt's exaggerated sense of self-worth) was right on target with his critical missiles. I've only read through "Yonder" -- the first of the essays -- and can't wait to see what awaits... what new insight into Ms. Hustvedt's take on just about everything.



Things have not been very good at school. Work just keep getting more and more complicated and I am at a loss on how to make time for other things. I am reading very late at night or very early in the morning. Running I usually do right after work, and then from there a sweaty me starts grading until about 5:30 or 6 PM. I go home then and call my mother on the way home. It has become a habit of sorts, and she really does look forward to it. We talk about the weather (it's the only thing in her life that suffers any kind of change). I tell her about my day, my students, my inability to cope with life. She always says she is praying for me. If she only knew I'd lost my faith. This happened over a long period of time, and while I am not saying I have completely and utterly lost my faith, I can see a long path but no end in sight. I have some ambitions, but can't seem to draw the energy it requires. Who knows where I will draw the time to write 50,000 words in November.... it's late now, and I am very tired.

Siri Hustvedt's "What I Loved"

“What I Loved” turned out to be a surprisingly engrossing book. I say surprisingly because despite some repetitive elements in the narrative, the compelling characters kept me glued to the page. This is, I believe, the fastest I have ever read a book over 300 pages (and that’s a lot to say). I think it took me a little under a day and a half. I wanted to post my impressions of the book yesterday but I didn’t have the time. The more I work on my courses website, the less time is left over to write. The reading comes easy, really, at my second story balcony right off my main bedroom. It’s a lovely place to read. At any rate, Leo’s son, Matthew, drowns and shortly thereafter Bill also dies (of a heart attack). With Erica gone to teach on the west coast (Berkley), Leo and Violet are left alone to deal with Bill’s death and Mark’s continuous decent into chaos. Mark becomes entangled with an artist-turned-murderer—his name is Teddy Giles. Mark steals and lies beyond anything I have ever read possible in a fictional character (it reminded me of “Paul’s Case” by Willa Cather, but more complex and depth-driven). Mark lies to the point where Leo and Violet can’t do anything to help him. Up to the very end it is still unclear how Mark’s personality has become so muddled. The murder committed by Teddy Giles is not confirmed until the very end and he is put away. Since the novel takes place over the span of 25 years, Leo, the narrator, becomes an “old man,” and tries unsuccessfully to create a place for himself in the world. I say unsuccessfully because what ails him the most is the fact that he begins to lose his eye sight—for an art historian that must be deadly. He continues work on his Goya book, but soon shifts his attention to a book on Bill’s work trying to finish it before a retrospective of Bill’s work takes place. The story drags a bit at the end but definitely the characters make up for it in the end. There’s a quote by Gershom Scholem that Leo analyzes in the course of trying to understand Mark’s resistance to reality. The quote is a translation from Hebrew: “to repent” which is the same word for “to return.” Violet soon turns her attention to a possible teaching position in Paris and takes off leaving Leo behind, alone.

This is definitely a book I will recommend for its depth and large, complex, varied and chameleon-like characters. Worth my time and effort!

I worked yesterday about six hours at the English Department office. As I was walking out, I saw a student that graduated a couple of years ago. She is now a sophomore in college. After some small talk, I got into my car and thought about that student when she came as a freshman to the academy. She was in the soccer team (which I coached at the time) and it seemed she rubbed everyone the wrong way. She quit the team shortly after that and I never really stopped worrying about her until the moment she graduated. I think the rest of the students in her class understood her around the end of her second year here, and accepted her personality and her ways. It is true that everyone finds their pace in life—I clearly saw that in her yesterday. I started thinking as I drove home that I really don’t know much about the students in general. I mean, there’s always the over-achiever, the one who wants to be more intelligent than the instructor, the under-achiever, the eternally-bored one, the one who likes you and the one who hates you all at the same time…. I think I am beginning to see a maturity in me as an instructor, an ability to let go of them after four years realizing that indeed they are NOT my daughters and that I am just a tiny, tiny some times insignificant part of their lives. I accept that. All I can do is give all I’ve got every four year stretch, one set of class after another and never relent. I am not as confused about my role as a teacher anymore, at least not how I used to be. It’s all a cycle, a readjusting and regenerative process. One must love it, of course, but one must also be realistic about one’s own contribution to the learning process. Think too much of your own role in it and you spoil it—embrace its realities and perhaps you’ll be more efficient, more loving, more compassionate. I only regret that I have only four years to give to each class. It is reality at work that, after they leave, they are on their own and because the world offers so much now, I end up meaning very little to them. I am not upset or jealous about it… it’s just reality… they leave and most of them never come back.

Next on my reading list is “Writers on Writing: Volume ii.” This is the continuation of “The New York Times” columns that were collected on an earlier volume I read this year. I plan to complete the cycle and read “An End to Suffering” right after.

Amis' Inferno Ends -- Hustvedt's "What I Loved"

Martin Amis' "The Moronic Inferno" kept the straight shooter model throughout. He examines a Ronald Reagan campaign for president, as well as Stephen Spielberg, Joseph Heller, Joan Didion, Gloria Steinem, Hugh Hefner, plus an attack on political correctness and other American cultural elements that are ridiculously dated (remember I said this book is a collection of essays written in the early 1980s. All in all, the book was a nice read, but I don't recommend it unless you are trying to take a trip down amnesia lane.

"What I Loved" by Siri Hustvedt has been a literary tour de force. I believe this is the fastest I have read a book in my life, I think. I started yesterday morning and I am in page 256 of 364. The story takes place in New York City and it follows the life of four artists/academics as they struggle to make sense of their increasingly complicated world. Leo is the narrator and he is a professor of art history; his wife Erica is a literature professor at Rutgers. Leo's friend Bill starts out as a struggling artist, but becomes a highly respected modernist. Bill is married to Lucille but the marriage sours and he ends up divorcing and marrying Violet Blom instead. Violet had been Bill's model at one time. At any rate, both couples grow together, supporting each other through and through. Leo and Erica's son, Matthew, dies while away at camp, and they are all left to try and fulfill their parenthood at the expense of Bill and Lucille's son, Mark. There are around two or three different narratives going on at the same time and the book becomes undone while the lengthy descriptions of Bill's art pieces take place. Also, at the beginning, some of the expository seems forced. For example, "When we met, Erica was assistant professor in English at Rutgers, and I had already been teaching at Columbia in the art history department for twelve years. My degree came from Harvard, hers from Columbia..." All this seems a lot of information and breaks some of the narrative style she had established with Leo's voice. That, I believe, is the only drawback (it happens several times throughout) with the novel. It is, nevertheless, one of the most engrossing novels I have read in a long time; I can sit and read for hours and totally get lost in the narrative without a worry in the world. It's lyrical and full of passion.

I forgot to mention that Siri Hustvedt is married to Paul Auster. I picked up her book because I had read a terrible review of "A Plea for Eros," also by Siri Hustvedt, and wanted to know what the offense was. So far, no complains... but Paul Auster is still my favorite.

Cold Days

I forgot to mention that we had two days off from school this week. The temperatures were down to -11 in some places, and it was a surprise to see schools close from Michigan to Maine. I didn't lose a single day because I posted all my classes materials on my course website. I am sure the kids loved it.

"Writers on Writing" is a particular treasure. So many of the authors have gone into detail about what they do and how they do it. One that struck a nerve was an essay by Annie Proulx. She talks about her shovels of metaphorical work... lovely image... one metaphor after another. I haven't read much by her, but I have a collection of short stories "Heart Songs" that I might get to soon.

My mother sent me $20 for my birthday. I felt embarrassed, of course, since I am the one who helps her out now and it shouldn't be the other way around. I wanted to send the money back, but she told me over the phone to spend it on something nice. So I bought "What I Loved" by Siri Hustvedt. I read a bad review on her book "A Plea for Eros" and was interested to see what else she has written. It also helps my intriguing the fact that she is married to Paul Auster. I can't fit the new book in but I will try for it perhaps next year.