Professor Wilson was the one who taught me Victorian Literature. He was quite good at it too.

Of course, you had to get used to the fact that he would take a 3 1/2 hour class, talk for three hours without a break, then send you home a half hour early. Once you learned not to drink a lot of liquids before his class, and that all his questions were rhetorical, you could settle in and start to enjoy his very dry humor and somewhat bashful retelling of victorian scandal.

He knew his stuff, and when you learned to listen, you learned a lot. I remember he told us a story of one victorian figure (can’t recall who) that had a fetish for women with strong arms. He left his wife and became involved with this cleaning woman who had very well developed muscles in her arm. However, the gentleman did not actually become intimate with this cleaning woman, much to her frustration.

I don’t remember exactly, but I have the impression it ended in some sort of murder. I do remember exactly how Professor Wilson would tell the sordid details with excruciating delicacy and yet with absolute relish and delight.

When I ran across the graphic novel A Treasury of Victorian Murder by Rick Geary, the idea fit in very well with my concept of Victorian times. The artwork was a wonderful combination of cute and sinister, perfect for the subject. Geary shows all the nice little details of dress and furnishings that gladden the hearts of Victorians, but he shows the terrifying evil faces of the murders that would satisfy the judgemental souls.

The book is not very long, but it is only one in a series. Geary tells the stories in a journalistic, factual way. He lets his pictures build the drama.

This novel by Philip Roth is number 52 on the “Top 100 best English language novels of the 20th century.” I’ve talked about this list before, and I’d said how I’ve read a number of them already.

I hadn’t read Portnoy’s, although I’d read another more recent Roth novel, The Human Stain.

That one was really good. Interesting characters, challenging themes, plot twists, all good stuff. I figured I would like Portnoy too.

Mm. Portnoy’s Complaint came out in ’67. I think the author has matured quite alot by the time he got to Human Stain.

Intresting how there are some similar themes: Female who is illiterate, Jewishness, Racism, Sex.

But PC positively reeks of the sixties. I think, what with the sexual revolution and all that, the on-going topic of masturbation was much more compelling than it is now. And I guess all of Portnoy’s sexual exploits were supposed to be deviant and shocking.

Gotta tell ya, they just aren’t anymore. Other than his obsession with choking his chicken as an adolescent, his main sexual sin seems to be fulfilling his fantasy of sleeping with two women at once.

Yawn.

This is regular prime-time fare in the naughty aughts. What shocked in the 60s is discussed around the dinner table this side of the 20th century.

I found his resentment of his family to be a far more interesting story line. And his Jewishness. Ethnic distinctions have also faded in importance by now, but it is interesting to remember how important they used to be.

I’m glad that I’ve read Human Stain already, it lets me know that the author has also progressed with the times. The Anti-Semitism that is the obsession of Portnoy is completely outside of my own experience. And the 90s setting of Human Stain reflects that cultural change. In some ways, chronicles it.

But that’s another review.

Portnoy’s Complaint seems like an artifact now. Perhaps the reasons it is so heralded is because it said some things for the first time. It does not come to any kind of conclusions. It just states a problem, Portnoy’s problem.

I don’t identify with him that much. And even if I did, he never offers any kind of solution. He’s just complaining.

Stephen King writes books that a lot of people like. I mean, A LOT of people like his books.

I am not one of them. Can’t stand horror. Not it a snide “that’s so low-brow” kind of way. More in a “Oh my god, I will never close my eyes again” kind of way. So, I’ve avoided Stephen King books the way some people avoid battery acid. I know what they will do to me.

This book, however, I sought out and enjoyed. King was writing about how to write. That subject can be scary too, but in a totally different way.

He has some good things to say, starting with what started him off and moving on to more technical issues.

I think I might have gotten more out of the story if I were familiar with his works, but even so, I got plenty enough out. He was fairly personal, talking about his young life and influences, and even exposing his drug and alcohol addiction.

He gave out some good advice: Don’t use adverbs, especially ‘zestfully.’ Interesting. And he even gave some real nuts and bolts, like specific magazines and books to check out if you want to be a writer.

I will say one thing, though. I listened to a recording of this book, and that was great. I got to hear King’s memories and thoughts in his own voice with his own rhythm and cadence.
BUT!
The man has the strangest way of pronouncing the sound “L” that I have ever heard in my life. He closes his throat around it. And as much as I was interested in the last bit of the book, when he got into some very practical advice, I STILL wanted to strangle him for that weird gutteral “L.”

Go get the book. READ it, and you will be glad you did.

Shanower took the Illiad and made it, or at least the first part of it, into a graphic novel. I love the heroic epic, and comic book format is a perfect medium to use for its re-interpretation.

I confess, I’ve started the Illiad, but not finished it. I know the story, but I’m shaky on some of the details. Really, the poetic language of the original can obscure some of the more prosaic details.

Also, the different Gods require interpretation. Maybe the Greek listeners knew who everyone was and what their ‘powers’ were, but had a little trouble keeping the dieties sorted out.

This novel was great in showing the action of the story. Naturally, the incredible beauty of the poetry can’t be shown to the same advantage in a comic book. But Shanower wasn’t trying to go there. He has a huge Bibliography in the back, which impressed me. I feel pretty confident that he stayed true to the facts.

I could already tell the he had kept to the characters of the people. Oddyseus had the arrogant and sales-pitch kind of conversational skills i remember from the original. Achilles and his mother interacted on their comic cell the same way they did in the stanzas.

Also, Shanower pointed out some of the political implications I had missed. Somehow, I hadn’t realized that Troy was such an important trade route. It made more sense that the battle be fought from political and monetary reasons than just that Helen was such a hottie.

The drawings were wonderful, too. The decorations and clothing of the people were interesting to see. Also, Shanower employed a range of graphical devices for his storytelling that kept things very interesting. He uses his drawing in ‘shots’ like a movie camera, sometimes. It gives a greater perspective.

This is a worthwhile book.

I’m taking a night class for writing. This one happens to be a Memoir writing class.

It fit my schedule.

But it’s also a very interesting style.

One of our assignments is to read a memoir and do a presentation about it.

My lazy impulse is to do a report on a book I’ve already read. When I stop to think about it, I have read a lot of memoirs:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou

Travels With Charley by Steinbeck

Walden by Thoreau

Earth Horizon by Mary Austin

A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolfe

Paradise, Piece by Piece by Molly Peacock

Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris

As Far As You Can Go Without A Passport by Tom Bodett

Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by David Eggers

On The Road by Jack Keruoac

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman by Richard Feynman

Grass Soup by Zhang Xianlang

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

Citizen 13660by Mine Okubo

Maus by Art Spiegelman

San Francisco Stories by Derek Powazek

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a girlhood among ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston

Those are the ones I just remember, the ones I’ve read already (or at least started).

I love all of them. But maybe I should branch out and try reading something new.

This is the best self-help book I have ever read. No matter how sorry for myself I feel, this book snaps me out of it.

There are sections about your love life, your pets, your friend and yourself. And they say it all, right out there.

Things like:
No one really likes you.

If your pet were bigger than you, it would consider you prey.

Your significant other will never be as attracted to you as they are to a person they saw on TV once.

I’m sure a psychologist could use many multi-syllabic words to explain why, but the simple fact is, I love this book.

I grab it whenever I am overcome with too much angst or self-pity. It truly works.

There was a guy at work wearing a tigger coat.

“Oh you like Winnie the Pooh?”

“My wife loves him. She has all the movies.”

MOVIES?!

He didn’t even know it was a book. He didn’t care that it was a book.

Poor man.

Winnie is so much cleverer on paper. That’s one of the best things about it, the stories work on a very sophisticated level.

I picked it off the shelf, looking for something to read before I sleep, something that will make me have pleasant dreams.

My copy of A.A. Milne’s book was published in Russia. A student gave it to me as a gift when I was there. She thought I would like to have another book to read in english.

The funny thing about it, is that is has asterisks at the hard to translate bits. In the back, there is a definition of the phrase in Russian. Phrases you wouldn’t expect, like “he lived under the name of Sanders”, and the gender ambiguity of the name “winnie” have to be explained.

Somethings, like “Heffalump” have the explanation saying essentially, “it doesn’t translate.”

It’s nice too, to see a different illustrator’s interpretation of the characters. Disney has permanently stamped his mark on Piglet, Kanga and Rabbit. We cannot concieve of Pooh without the red shirt.

Anyway, that’s just my copy.

Go get your own. Turn off the news and sit down to remember there are pleasant places still.

Checked this out of the library, on CD. It was really nice to have somebody read me a story while I did computer work. THere were some really good stories on this collection.

It surprised me, because I had read a lot of them before. I thought I hadn’t seen anything from the last 30 years. But it turns out I had! Imagine that.

My favorite one from the collection, I hadn’t acutally read. “Pet Fly” by Mosely. It was a great story about this guy trying to get the rhythm of corporate life.

My life is a lot of corporate nonsense.

This story tells how a regular guy sees a glimpse of the underbelly. i really liked it. I had to go find the print version of it, so I could give a copy to a friend dealing with the same sort of nonsense.

Turns out the paper version has even more stories in it. I’ll have to read them.

I was killing time, waiting for a movie to start in Glendale. There was a bookstore nearby, and I thought I would go look in there.

“Hello There!” A man in a baseball cap sat at a small table right inside the doorway smiled big. “I’m doing a book signing! Would you like one? Here: The Adventures of Rodney Appleseed”

He handed me a book with a color cover. “Oh, It’s fiction!” I said, “Fiction is hard.”

“Thank you for saying that,” he said. “Not everyone understands that.”

We talked for a moment about whether Rodney Appleseed had anything to do with Johnny Appleseed. Then I decided to buy the book.

“It’s like nothing else you’ve ever read, ” the author said.

“Don’t say that!” I told him. “I’ve read a lot of books.”

Thank you, Ross Anthony, author. I’ve read it. Now I can tell everyone about it.

—————

The Infinite Adventures of Rodney Appleseed
By Ross Anthony

The hero of this book, Rodney Appleseed, might be just any boy with a preponderous ability to ask questions. But if he were, his adventures would not be infinite. And when you get a bit into the book you realize that infinity is an essential part of Rodney’s adventures.

Anthony tells his story with the kind of quirky irony found in The Phantom Tollbooth . He has a message, a kind of moral to the story, similar to Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

Which is not to imply that the book is in any way derivative. The whole thing was quite original, and a pleasure to read.

Anthony obviously loves the fact that as the author he can do anything he wants in his book. He twists and contorts the impossible and the plausible, having his characters do impossible things that make absolute sense. It makes the reader think about the possible things that are done in real life that make no sense. The book encourages its readers to ask questions and take chances in order to reach their dreams.

Continue reading →