In Defense of the Books You Hate: On the Road

I’ve had some fun at Jack Kerouac’s expense here and here, but I have to admit I’d never actually read the man until this past week. The Subterraneans  has been sitting on my shelf, unread, for about 10 years because I’ve always wanted to make that first Kerouac plunge with On the Road.  With the film adaptation of the book coming out this month, I finally got my hands on a copy. Still, the mild curiosity I’ve always held about On the Road  was balanced by a healthy dose of skepticism about a book that seems to inspire more scoffing than praise these days.

Truman Capote once panned Kerouac’s ‘spontaneous prose’ by saying, “It isn’t writing at all-it’s typing.” John Updike famously parodied On the Road  in a New Yorker  hit piece called “On the Sidewalk,” in which two kids on a tricycle and a scooter ride off “into the wide shimmering pavement” through a bed of irises. At the end of the story it is revealed that the childish main character is actually 39- right about Kerouac’s age at the time. Updike’s lambast even got a mention in Kerouac’s New York Times obituary.

But more striking to me than either of these criticisms is the literatti’s collective dismissal of On the Road  as a childish romp fit only for the trash heap- the same one where they’ve thrown their old copies of Catcher in the Rye  and Atlas Shrugged  and any other books that tend to cast a spell on the under-twenty crowd. In their wisdom and erudition, they prove that they've outgrown the aimless, childish exuberance of On the Road  by smiling quaintly at anyone who sees it for more than a youngster’s literary rite of passage.

What a crock. This is a book that left me absolutely buzzing- and I say that as a pretty conservative 34-year-old father of three. Let’s tackle the writing first. I don’t know that I’ve ever read a book with such a palpable current to it. I don’t mean to say it’s a page-turner that will keep you up all night, yet each time you wade in, you find yourself swept away in  Kerouac’s captivating river of prose.

His vivid descriptions force the reader to step back and look at things in new and unexpected ways. Instead of putting his finger on Hemingway’s ‘mot juste-’ the one, true word that perfectly describes the situation at hand, Kerouac just hurls a bunch of them at you, each with its own angle, its own color, and its own flavor. So, for example, a simple phrase like “sad characters” becomes “poignant California characters with their end-of-the-continent sadness.” Pretty great, right? To me, this style is not flighty or reckless- it’s like gazing through an ever-changing kaleidoscope. And it's downright mesmerizing.

But how about the story? Isn’t it just a loser’s travel log? A bum’s manifesto? Or a hap-hazard, hedonistic attack on American social norms? If you choose to look at it that way, I guess it is. In his New York Times review, David Dempsey wrote: 

“As a portrait of a disjointed segment of society acting out of its own neurotic necessity, On the Road,  is a stunning achievement. But it is a road, as far as the characters are concerned, that leads to nowhere.”

I think he’s right, actually.  But I think that’s the whole point. The book is infused with an emptiness and a sadness that seems to come to a crescendo at the end. Despite Sal’s book-length fixation on Dean (or Kerouac’s lifelong fixation on Neal Cassady, on whom Dean was based), I read On the Road  to be a pretty pointed criticism, at least in part, of Dean’s manic search for ‘IT’ that left friendships, marriages and even children in its ruinous wake. 


And that’s not an accidental message. He foreshadows it in the first few pages, builds on it with MaryLou’s, Camille’s and Inez’s experience, and ends the book with his own abandonment, delirious and sick, in Mexico. That, to me, is what makes On the Road  so much more than a bohemian travel log. It’s equal parts documentation, celebration, and condemnation of the sometimes misguided rebellion of Kerouac’s generation.

At the end of the day, appreciating On the Road  doesn’t make you a shiftless beat generation wannabe, any more than appreciating Lolita  makes you a warped child molester. Read it for what it is, and by all means enjoy the ride.

Review: State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

So, State of Wonder.

The story was engaging and there were definitely some very nice twists at the end. The writing was beautiful and the characterization was great. And the Amazon setting itself, is worth your time. But despite all of that, the book left me in a state of, well... what’s the opposite of wonder?

I guess I can file my reaction under ‘personal reading preferences unfulfilled.’ You see, I generally like my fiction to be believable and realistic. I’m not a big sci-fi or fantasy reader, for example. If you’re practiced in the art of suspending disbelief for the length of a book, you’ll love this one. If you’re like me, you’ll probably enjoy it, but come away saying, “meh…”

Maybe I was spoiled by reading David Grann’s The Lost City of Z   last year. In that  book you get the real Amazon- the one that chews you up and spits you out (if you’re lucky), the one that inspired the name “The Green Hell.” Patchett’s take on the Amazon is the romanticized rainforest of modern fairy tales, where an isolated patch of yellow-barked, pink-flowering trees that hold cures for the world’s greatest diseases remains completely secret just a few hours from a metropolis of 2 million people, and even closer to warring tribes that would have discovered and destroyed them hundreds of years ago.

But that’s not all. What are the chances, say, that a pharmaceutical company would send a hapless cholesterol researcher, alone, to the middle of the Amazon jungle to find a missing scientist also employed by the firm? Okay, let’s give this one to Patchett. Let’s say that might really happen. Then what are the chances that they send another  hapless cholesterol researcher, alone, to the middle of the Amazon jungle to find the missing scientist after the first cholesterol researcher died and/or went missing? You see where I’m going. There are other plot elements that bothered me, but while they stretched the realm of incredible coincidences, they were  at least believable.

But there were other issues, too. In a sideplot, the main character begins taking Lariam, a Malaria preventative with neuropsychiatric side effects. It raises the horrible specter of nightmares she had as a child, while visiting her father in India (these nightmares were also caused by the drug, though she didn’t know it at the time). This same recurring nightmare, is retold time and time again- ad nauseum- as she prepares and sets off for Brazil. The kicker? She stops taking the Lariam, and the whole thing becomes inconsequential to the story. Grrr.

I don’t know. I never give stars or numeric scores in my reviews- you’re either intrigued by what I say, or you’re not. I guess if I was asked about this book, I’d say that I liked it. I’d even recommend it- but no more strongly than I’d recommend John Grisham’s The Testament,  which explores the Pantanal of southwestern Brazil, and certainly no more strongly than I’d recommend The Lost City of Z.  Now that  is a book about the Amazon that will leave you in a state of wonder.

Anyone else read State of Wonder ? Do you disagree? Should I have started with Belle Canto  instead?

Casting Call Round 3

Time for another author look-alike post. Previous entries can be found here and here. Let’s get to it.

Though he's cast in shadow here, there’s something in the laugh lines, angled eyebrows and prominent cheekbones of Aldous Huxley, that reminds me an awful lot of a young Frank Sinatra.

Here’s Ivan Doig and the old man from Home Alone (Roberts Blossom). Give either one of these guys a snowshovel,  galoshes and a garbage can full of salt, and it would scare the crap out of me.

I’ll admit this one’s not an exact likeness, but work with me here: focus first on the lips…

…and then on the concerned-eyebrow face, and try to tell me there’s no resemblance between Jonathan Franzen and Rick Moranis:

And while we're on the subject of crazy eyebrows and exact likenesses, did anyone ever see Robert Frost and Andy Rooney in the same room together? Ever?

Finally, some might say Nathaniel Branden is the “heir” to Ayn Rand. Others will argue for Alan Greenspan. Me? Steve Buscemi all the way:

Got any of your own? Add them in the forum, here.

Literary Death Match: Jane Eyre vs. Wuthering Heights

Transcripts of previous bouts can be found here and here.

Welcome once again to Literary Death Match, the ultimate brawl in bookish blood sports. Today, we’re poised to make a little history as we welcome the works of two storied female  authors to battle it out for the crowd. Up for grabs is the title of “Best Book by a Brontë Sister.” It’s Jane Eyre  vs. Wuthering Heights, and things are about to get crazy- they may even get out of control, and thousands of fans at ShelfActualization Arena are also hoping they get just a little bit “catty.” Let’s send you that way now, to Mike Thackery and Tom Galbraith, who will be calling the match for us there.

Write like Kerouac in just 5 Easy Steps

1) Start with any sentence:

I took a big swig.

2) Now add a whimsical phrase to give it some unexpected flavor.

I took a big swig in the air.

3) Now insert about three (but no fewer than two) adjectives in front of your direct object or the object of your prepositional phrase:

I took a big swig in the wild, blowing, drizzling  air.

4) Now replace at least one of those adjectives with a word not normally associated with the object it describes. Proper place names work well, but really it can be anything.

I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical, drizzling air.

5) If you chose not to use a proper place name in the previous step, tack it on to the end of the sentence in its own prepositional phrase:

I took a big swig in the wild, lyrical, drizzling air of Nebraska.

See? Kerouac! It’s easy. Now let’s try it with a more complex sentence:

1) Start with any sentence of your choosing:

I heard a laugh, and here came this farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner.

2) Embellish your direct object:

I heard a great  laugh, and here came this farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner.

3) Do it again, and don’t shy away from hyperbole:

I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh in the world,  and here came this farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner.

4) Now insert your adjectives:

I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh in the world, and here came this rawhide old-timer wheat  farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner.

5) Now swap out one of your adjectives as before:

I heard a great laugh, the greatest laugh in the world, and here came this rawhide old-timer Nebraska  farmer with a bunch of other boys into the diner.

Piece of cake. Now you try.

The Stunning Beauty of Bookstores

We shared the stunning beauty of books here. Today bookstores  take their turn in the limelight. Check out Flavorwire’s 20 most beautiful bookstores in the world. Here are some of my favorites:

The "cathedral" of bookstores:

The "grand theater" of bookstores:

And "the college professor's office" of bookstores:

Find all 20 here:

First Line Friday

If you review my previous First Line Friday posts, you may notice a pattern: I like short, zippy, poignant first lines.  So, in an effort to diversify my preferences, I'm going with a longer first line today:

"It was the summer of 1998 that my neighbor Coleman Silk - who, before retiring two years earlier, had been a classic professor at nearby Athena College for some twenty-odd years as well as serving for sixteen more as the dean of the faculty - confided to me that, at the age of seventy-one, he was having an affair with a thirty-four-year-old cleaning woman who worked down at the college."

That is what I would call an immense first line.  It provides a lot of information . . . a whole novel's worth in one sentence.  But, in spite of my preferences for short first lines, I have a certain appreciation for this first line. It seems to work.  It's somewhat burdensome, to be sure, but all in all, I can appreciate it.

Dost thou disagree?

Review: The Death of a Disco Dancer, by David Clark

When we reviewed Wasatch  back in early February, the publisher of that collection, Zarahemla Books, offered us a review copy of David Clark’s novel, The Death of a Disco Dancer.  I was a little hesitant to accept, due almost entirely to what I think is a pretty lackluster cover. (I am a shallow, shallow man- If only we had a nice, catchy adage to warn people against judging inner content by outward appearances that would apply to the book world.) Ah well, more on that in the postscript below.

Anyway, I was finally able to clear the deck for Disco Dancer  this past week, and couldn’t have been more pleasantly surprised.

This book will lull you into thinking you’re reading a reverie of sophomoric highjinks, funny enough to keep your inner 11-year old in stitches. But before you know it, you’re steeped in a poignant coming of age story that deals with themes of love, family, faith, forgiveness, and death. Clark alternates between the main narrative, the summer joys and pitfalls of Todd Whitman’s Arizona youth, and intercalary chapters set in the present-day, as Todd and his siblings gather to say goodbye to, and bury, their mother. The intercalaries provide further meaning and a touching backdrop to the main story of the novel.

That main story centers largely on the excitement and fears of growing up, and that timeless question of what to do when your dementia-stricken grandmother starts showing up in the middle of the night and supplanting the cherished faces of her past with pictures of disco fiend John Travolta. I’m not even joking. A number of different plot lines converge under the dulcet strains of Kenny Rogers’ “Lady” during the Hello Dance on Todd’s second day of Junior High. It is the perfect emotional climax for the story, and one that brought my own past vividly before my eyes.

The main narrative is also peppered with a number of side stories that deliver color and context to the few months of action we see playing out in the book. Early on, the vignettes carry an air of Family Guy cutaway gags, inserted for their own purpose rather than to move the story forward- a ghost story at a Fathers-and-Sons Campout, and a detailed run-down of activities forbidden in the pews during church services are just a couple of examples. But on the whole, these asides help to flesh out the world where the story takes place.

As for that world, the Mormon milieu that might make some readers wary, I’ll just say that there is no tortuous exposition or preachy explanation to be found anywhere. This book will appeal to anyone who’s ever been eleven years old. And since it’s the story of a pre-pubescent boy, there’s nearly as much mention of the Dallas Cowboys and the Phoenix Suns as there is of the family’s religion. Any question you might have about certain terms or topics can be answered by the short glossary Clark provides at the back of the volume. It’s a book that should not be pidgeon-holed as something it is not. What it is, is a compelling peek into the world of a 1981 pre-teen, who’s doing his best to figure life out as adulthood barrels towards him.

The Death of a Disco Dancer  is a poignant and entertaining read, with characters you can't help but care about. And as we pointed out yesterday, Clark’s easy, colorful prose is at once hilarious and heart-rending. Do yourself a favor and read it.

***Postscript: Please, please, please don’t judge this book by its ‘Dean Wesley Smith-esque’ cover. Looking at it, you’d think you were picking up an absurdist horror parody or a cheeky forensic science romance. I’ll be the first to admit, the cover is terrible. The book is anything but. Read it and see.***

From the Pen of David Clark

We've talked about the science of powerful prose here and here, and we regularly share examples of lines that have smacked us over the head during our reading. But today's lines come from an author you might not be familiar with. Take a look at how David Clark swings so effortlessly between the profane and the profound, starting with a description of an album cover, and continuing with  a handful of other excerpts. As usual, all emphasis is mine- the bolded phrases are merely those that crackled with electricity as they entered my brain:

"There was a guy with the cocky expression of a gunfighter frozen in a flamboyant disco pose on a dance floor made of colorful, illuminated blinking squares. He wore a closely fitted white suit with flared slacks and a black spread-collared shirt. His left butt cheek and left arm were cocked to one side, apparently ready to fire off an explosive pelvic thrust. His right arm was extended emphatically skyward like an exclamation point, as if directing the very powers of heaven to take note of the unholy disco  carnage he was about to  unleash. Inset above him on the album cover was a large photograph of three hairy white men in suffocatingly tight white jumpsuits smiling gaily and benevolently down upon the ultraserious dancer."
 

"These were not hands of rest or pleasant parlor conversation; these were hands of planting, picking, plucking, scrubbing, shearing, slicing, sewing, boiling, bathing, mending, canning, chopping, and kneading- of doing. These were hands upon which life itself depended." 

"At first the breezeless warmth of the dumpster felt reassuring, almost cacoonlike, but I soon realized that it acted as a perfect Dutch oven for its putrid contents."
 

"The initial shock and the lingering nausea, like a migraine in your nut pouch, left you powerless to retaliate for at least fifteen minutes." 

"We continued on past the sculpted dead-end hollows and box canyons with their juniper and piñon pine and the varicose veins of cottonwood scrub tracing every gully and wash that had a trickle of water, through the quiet farms of Hatch and Hillsdale and the comparative bustle of Panguitch's Main Street."
 

"I noticed the texture and complexity of the web of wrinkles that shot out from the corners of her eyes and then curved and twirled in their own unique patterns down her cheekbones and across her jaw."

Pretty great, right? If you're intrigued, come back tomorrow and we'll review the book for you...

Imitation is the sincerest form of plagiarism

In case you hadn’t noticed, the publishing world is ga-ga over E.L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey, a book that was born as an erotica fan-fiction derivative of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series.

Take a moment to soak up that sentence, by the way, because it’s likely the last time we’ll touch on either of those series in this space. But it should work wonders on the search engines, and it does give us a timely segue into the juicy topic of plagiarism. Yes, that’s right- not even the high-brow world of classic literature is immune to charges of literary larceny. Consider the following:

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is said to have ripped off two 1920s sci-fi novels (The City of the Sun & The Honeymoon Trip of Mr. Hamilton) by Polish author Mieczyslaw Smolarski. I don’t speak Polish, but in the Slavic language I do  speak, “smola” means bad luck. Based on the relative fame and success of mssrs Huxley and Smolarski, I’d say the Polish author was appropriately named.

Oscar Wilde privately admitted to lifting from J.K. Huysman’s A Rebours, telling fellow author Max Beerbohm “Of course I plagiarize. It’s the privilege of the appreciative man.” That’s a bit like telling someone “Of course I stole your shirt. I liked it very much. You’re a man of fine taste, sir.”

Wallace Stegner found himself embroiled in a plagiarism scandal when his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Angle of Repose  was criticized by descendents of Mary Hallock Foote, a woman whose letters and memoirs inspired the novel and were mixed with Stegner’s original narrative to create it. In this case, I think I stand with Stegner, since he’s operating in a bit of a grey area. For one thing, he was working with one of Foote’s descendents, who gave him permission to do what he did. For another, he offered to let her read the full manuscript, which she refused. Now, were some of the excerpts a little longer than he originally promised? Sure. But they’re also the weakest part of the book, as I’ve observed here.

Here’s one final example, brought to our attention by Readthe100. It’s one I’ll pass on to you without judgment. (In other words, I’d love to hear what you, the readers, think about it):

Did T.S. Eliot bogart “The Wasteland” from, well… “The Wasteland?”