Book Dreams

One of my recent dreams was inspired by People of the Book, which I’ve read, The Duma Key, which I haven’t, and that jordan girl’s lyric journal. I was looking at a painting of a waterfront; I’m certain it was a painting because I could see the textures of the brush strokes. The color palette was in keeping with the Florida Keys, but that wasn’t the only aspect that resembles Stephen King’s latest novel. I’ll get to that. The vantage point of the painting was right about sea level, not too far from the shore. I could see some details under the water, the chunky waves, a weathered old fishing boat in the left foreground with a span of beach behind it, a dock in the right foreground with a shack behind it, and kitschy white clouds in a blue sky overhead. Here’s where the scene from People of the Book comes in: looking closer, I could see words painted on every surface of the painting. Words on waves, words on the wooden planks of the boat and the dock, words on the wind. I don’t remember what any of the words were, but after a moment I realized that they were lyrics. The final detail I noticed is what gave the painting its apocalyptic vibe: a man was under the dock, trapped by the rising tide. Upon closer inspection, I recognized the man as myself! When I supervised shipping and receiving at the store there were times when I felt like I was trying to push the tide away from the dock, but I didn’t have a dream like this until I moved to the book department! Has anyone else had a dream this visceral and attributable to specific books that they would care to share?

Writing Seminars

Is it possible to expect too much from a free writing seminar?  Does that defeat the purpose of even attending?  After attending a free seminar last night, I would answer yes to both of those questions.  The seminar was the third in a series of four presented by the Utah Arts Council.  I did not attend the first two, but the third one was on “Creative Writers and the Web” and the announcement specifically mentioned literary blogs.  I decided to attend expecting that I would hear some tips I could use to improve my blog, and in that respect I was disappointed.  The only mention of blogs was simply a recommendation to start one.  We were given pages of references of online journals and websites to visit, yet not one listing was for a literary blog.  Personally I would have appreciated more advice on blogging and less demonstrating how an avatar can fly in Second Life, but that’s just me!  Which is really the point: my expectations tainted my impressions of the event.  I probably should have held lower expectations for a free seminar.  There are plenty of resources available for upgrading a literary blog which I can and will research without the assistance of three (likely uncompensated) panelists.  I did get some questions answered by the panelists, and I appreciate the Utah Arts Council for presenting these free seminars.  To their credit, the room was overflowing with 50+ people (that’s both the attendance as well as the average age of attendants).  And although I came away with nothing particularly useful to me as a writer, I did take away a couple of things I can use as a book buyer.  Did it meet my expectations?  No, but it clarified what my expectations reasonably ought to be, and that is a lesson that everyone needs from time to time!

First U2 Essay

I’ve posted the first essay in my U2 cycle, “Satellite,” as its’ own page. It’s not technically book-related, but it is an enjoyable read!  I am still tweaking the formatting; the text is mine (copyright, etc., etc.), but I did borrow some of the photos from other websites.

The Ladies of Grace Adieu Review

It isn’t fair to compare an author’s second book to their first, particularly when it must follow the phenomenal Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, but the comparison is inevitable when Strange returns for a cameo appearance in The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Susanna Clarke’s collection of short stories (now available in paperback). One title character (Strange) meets the others in the first of these stories set in the same England/Faerie as Clarke’s debut novel. The Duke of Wellington and John Uskglass the Raven King are likewise featured again, and Mary, Queen of Scots, joins the ranks of nobility who find their paths crossed by fairy magic. “On Lickerish Hill” is a retelling of the fairy tale of Rumpelstiltskin with more emphasis on the fairy tale.

The best story in the collection, “Mr Simonelli or the Fairy Widower,” is one which bears no striking resemblance to any of its predecessors. It is comprised of a letter from Reverend Simonelli proclaiming his innocence to an influential parishioner, Mrs. Gathercole, the mother of five unmarried daughters, followed by his own journal entries recounting his remarkable encounters with an insidious fairy incongruously named John Hollyshoes. Simonelli took drastic measures to protect the Gathercole family from the fairy, and it is these measures which he must justify to their mother.

The three magical ladies of Grace Adieu cannot match the abilities of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, and the same can be said of their eponymous books. The Ladies of Grace Adieu seems to be an expansion of the ubiquitous footnotes found in Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell rather than a stand-alone work. That may not bother some readers, but Clarke’s second spell is less potent than her first.

Quote of the Day

“Books written by thinkers – men who thought and dared to express their thoughts – are always worth reading. I care not whether their authors were Atheists or Methodists, Heathen or Mohammedan; the life’s blood of the author circulates through them, and in reading you feel its pulsations. But books written by men who never saw with their own eyes, who never put out their hands, and felt the world for themselves, nor took one manly step, are the faintest echoes from the distant hills compared with the heaven-shaking thunder that produced them.”

Denton, title page of Rocky Mountain Saints

Review of Children of Hurin

While it is possible for an author’s unfinished works to be published posthumously, is it necessary? Even with an implicitly trusted editor, can the later works take their place alongside the former? These questions apply particularly to The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by his son Christopher Tolkien and illustrated by Alan Lee (Houghton Mifflin, $26.00). With The Children of Húrin, Christopher Tolkien presents a stand-alone version of a story already reproduced in the previous posthumous publications Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion. Is a third recounting actually necessary? In all of the languages of Middle-earth, the answer is yes.

Húrin and his wife Morwen have three children: Túrin, Urwen, and Nïenor. Urwen succumbs to a pestilence and dies in childhood; of the three children, she is the most fortunate. Because Húrin, a prisoner of war, resists the will of his captor Morgoth, his children are cursed and he is compelled to watch them suffer. Túrin is sent to live with the elves, but Morwen, who is with child, does not accompany him. Thus Túrin does not meet his sister Nïenor until later in life, under dubious circumstances. Túrin grows into a mighty hero, but he is ill-fated nonetheless and those around him, be they friend or foe, man or elf, male or female, suffer for it. Túrin fails by succeeding. He single-handedly slays the great dragon Glaurung, which has long plagued and pursued him, but his vengeance is merely a Cadmeian victory. When the dragon meets its demise, so does its horde of lies, and the terrible truth that remains destroys both Túrin and Nïenor. Húrin is released by Morgoth in time to find Morwen dying on the same spot.

The Children of Húrin is a great tree of a tale grown from the seed of the story of Kullervo found in The Kalevala, and nourished by the deep soil of Middle-earth. Along with The Tale of Beren and Lúthien and The Fall of Gondolin, it is one of the ‘Great Tales’ of the Elder Days, tales that are integral to the history of Middle-earth yet sufficiently self-contained to exist independently, as indicated in a letter the author wrote in 1951. Five-and-a-half decades later, Tolkien’s intent has been fulfilled.

Christopher Tolkien has proven himself a dedicated editor of his father’s writings as well as a faithful executor of his father’s wishes. The task of editing Tolkien’s compilations is complicated by the fact that he was his own greatest revisionist, setting aside incomplete manuscripts only to begin new versions years later. After careful consideration of multiple extant but undated versions of the story, Christopher Tolkien has produced this authoritative book, greatly enhanced by the lustrous, grand-yet-subtle illustrations of Alan Lee, which was always meant to stand on the shelf next to The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.

Current Reading List

1. Sign of the Book by John Dunning (a hard cover copy I picked up free at the university’s employee appreciation day)

2. Twenty Chickens for a Saddle by Robyn Scott (an advance reader copy; she’s coming to our store for a signing)

3. Gods Behaving Badly by Marie Phillips

4. Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon (the Coen brothers are making it into a movie)

5. White Guard by Mikhail Bulgakov

6. Golden Bough by James George Frazer

7. Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Boairdo

More or less in that order!

Becoming a Book Buyer

It was a long and unpredictable road from the Preservation department at the Marriott Library to the General Book department at the Campus Store, in spite of the fact that the two buildings are neighbors at the University of Utah. I loved my job in Preservation but it was only a work study position, which meant I had to leave when I graduated and I had hardly begun the training necessary for a career in the field. I already had a family to support when I graduated, so more schooling wasn’t a very attractive option. Neither was going into the foreign service, which had been my plan when I decided to study History and Russian. I knew I wanted to be a writer, but I also knew I needed a steady income, so I took a job with Hertz, the first company that offered. What do books and rental cars have in common? Unless one gets left in the other, not a whole lot!

I applied myself nonetheless, becoming a rising star (entry level to branch manager in less than a year) that quickly burned out (I quit less than a year later). I assumed that my education and work experience combined made me a desirable candidate for a multitude of positions, so I quit without lining up a new job. Huge mistake! My education actually priced me out of multiple opportunities, while my experience wasn’t nearly as valuable as I anticipated. I couldn’t get a job! I sold cell phones for a couple of months, picked up some substitute teaching gigs, and spent a summer basically unemployed. One of my more memorable job applications was for a position at the county library: I filled out the application, took the skills test, and waited for an invitation to interview. Instead of an invitation, I received a letter informing me that I ranked 11 out of 13, and that the top five candidates would receive interviews. That was a blow to the ego! I could live with not being in the top five, but I certainly didn’t expect to finish near the bottom! A couple of weeks later, I received another letter from the county. It explained that a computation error had resulted in a mistake in the rankings. Aha! That made a lot more sense! The letter went on to explain that my new rank was 13 out of 15! They actually used more of my tax dollars (okay, cents) to send me a letter notifying me I was even further from consideration! I still have the letter, naturally!

Our finances reached a critical point, and there was nothing else I could do but take an entry level position at Target. There I was, a college graduate, mopping the Bakery floor alongside high school students making the same wages. I started working again (the only point that mattered to my family) on September 12th, 2001, so I couldn’t feel too sorry for myself right then. That crept in later, as I spent four years working in different departments, always on the grocery side of the store, with no hope of advancement. What do groceries and books have in common? More than rental cars, as I will shortly explain!

My book Orlando and Geoffrey was published while I worked for Target, and I tried to get them to stock it, but they rarely carry items of “regional interest.” I decided to go to graduate school for an MFA, but then I ruptured my Achilles tendon, and that plan was set aside. I applied for more jobs in the book industry – I had a lunch interview with Gibbs Smith Publishers which seemed promising but never went anywhere, and a fine interview at Barnes & Noble, but they only offered me a position in their cafe (although they did stock and sell my book!). I didn’t know how I would make the switch from food to books. On a long shot I answered an ad for a position in the Merchandise department at the University Campus Store. Had I been able to work in soft goods at Target I’d have felt better about my odds of getting the job, but I went for it anyway. The interview went extremely well (Jaima Dyer, the Merchandise manager, also had rental car experience), and I was offered the position! As it turned out, the position was responsible for running the candy counter in the store, so I had the necessary experience after all.

That got my foot in the door of the bookstore and brought me back to the university campus, nearly full circle. From Merchandise I moved to Shipping and Receiving, and then, after our store dropped its contract with Ingram, I was able to move into a newly-created Book Buyer position! Now I work in General Books with Drew Goodman, a fellow History major and published author, who likewise started in this store running the candy counter! Yet another example of the truth being stranger than fiction!

Wrong Person for the Book

I wrote in an earlier post that I was excited to read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, but “excited” might not convey fully my interest in this book. During my senior year in college, I worked in the Marriott Library’s Preservation department. It was a glorious nine months – probably the most enjoyable job I’ve ever had! It was too brief a stint to get much more than a taste of book conservation, but I loved what I tasted! When the art museum on campus had a book art display last year I attended the exhibit twice, taking an uncle with me on the second visit. A novel about the history and conservation of an illuminated text certainly appeals to me. Moreover, I was interested in this particular book, the Sarajevo haggadah, having been primed by an article in The New Yorker about the incredible events surrounding its’ preservation. Considering this novel is written by a Pulitzer Prize-winning author, is a current best seller and a recent Booksense Pick, it bears all of the hallmarks of a terrific read. I even like the cover art!

To say that I was excited to read People of the Book is a gross understatement. To say that I was excited to read People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks is a gross misstatement. Her experience as a correspondent in Sarajevo does establish credibility for the scenes in that setting, but that is the only positive she brings to this story. Her main narrator, Hanna Heath, an Australian expert in book conservation, is just as irritating to me as she is to her distant mother. With only one exception, the imagined historical chapters are poorly portrayed and disappointing. The blatant emotional abuse that Brooks heaps on her characters is sickening, and the contrived plot twists (Hanna discovers she is half Jewish!) are insulting and unnecessary. The true story of the survival of the Sarajevo haggadah and those who risked their lives to protect it is dramatic enough, and these amendments only detract from that story. Brooks is the wrong person to write this book. In the hands of Michael Chabon it would have been riveting. As written by Brooks it’s revolting.

Revisionist History Reviewed

Anyone who enjoys a well-written book review ought to read Joan Acocella’s piece on God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570 to 1215 by David Levering Lewis in the February 4, 2008 issue of The New Yorker. It is an excellent, even treatment of the subject matter, the author’s writing style, and the current trend in revisionist history (Lewis’s hypothesis is that more of Europe could have benefited from Islamic rule, as they had the superior civilization). I confess to being partial to Charlemagne in his dealings with the Saracens, so I’m not likely to be swayed by Lewis’s argument. I was completely bowled over by Acocella’s review, though!