So you think you can read
Book recommendations "n" stuff for August
Punishingly hot summer…I haven’t been fully hydrated since May…our apartment is on a corner with SE exposures and the old factory windows turn it into a greenhouse, which is conducive to poor sleep but also conducive to growing big fat zinnias along the sill. Win some, lose some. I’d rather have big fat zinnias than a full eight hours.
And now, to the books—!
The Captain is Out to Lunch and the Sailors Have Taken Over the Ship by Charles Bukowski (Nonfiction, 1998)
It is time for a Bukowski comeback. Resurrect the bastard. I’ve never been disappointed by a Bukowski volume plucked randomly from the shelf and this is no exception—it is an edited version of a journal he kept from 1991-1993. Someone, presumably a publisher, requested that he keep it; otherwise, Bukowski stipulates, he would never have transcribed his inner monologue—he thinks people who jot down their thoughts and keep notebooks are “jerk-offs.” I agree! (I’m a jerk-off.)
But Bukowski submits to the request and records his days of going to the horse track, listening to Mahler, staring at his 9 cats, learning how to use a computer. There's a dense concentration of wisdom here, most of it focusing on the nature of death, friendship, fame, work, gambling and word processing technology.
While reading Captain I had a nonuseful but gratifying thought: "Bukowski is in all ways the opposite of Proust." What I mean is that Bukowski abided strictly in the present tense, (probably) stank, rejected psychologizing and perceived no point in composing long sentences given the existence of "etc" as an available terminus. Well, I love both those guys and to read them in sequence was a revelation. You can't help but be dazzled at the limitless potential of marks on paper. They can do anything, these marks. Mummify us in scented ribbons of reverie or toss us into a garbage can.
At one point in the journal Bukowski studies Descartes, Hume, Kierkegaard and Sartre. "I love these boys. They rock the world. Didn't they get headaches thinking that way? Didn't a rush of blackness roar between their teeth?"
Another good one, just Bukowski being himself: "Most people are not ready for death, theirs or anybody else's. It shocks them, terrifies them. It's like a great surprise. Hell, it should never be. I carry death in my left pocket. Sometimes I take it out and talk to it: "Hello, baby, how you doing? When you coming for me? I'll be ready."
Here's a piece I wrote about him 15 years ago for the Poetry Foundation. Too bad the photo file is broken; it was a nice photo of Bukowski that he’d sent to my grandfather with a doodle on the back…
Read if you like: Jim Jarmusch, Joe Brainard, bellowing, saxophone solos
Will and Testament by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund (Fiction, 2019)
I got to page 80 (the novel doesn’t start “cooking” until around then) on the strength of the superb pacing, which was a peculiar reading experience—like watching a train go by and thinking, “Wow, that train is sure moving at the correct speed, how satisfying.” Not a sophisticated aesthetic response. But ok, sometimes you need to throw back a book like a shot. Except it turned out Hjorth was doing something quite new and intriguing, and those 80ish pages were a necessary preparation for setting it up.
The plot involves four Norwegian siblings squabbling over an inheritance of seaside cabins. The eldest sibling, our narrator, is ferociously angry and hates her parents; there’s an element of suspense in unraveling the origin of her hatred. But really the novel is about how the experience of familial conflict is warped and magnified (or brutally diminished) by our modern modes of communication. As with one of those films where “New York City is a character,” this is a story in which text messages and emails constitute a “character.” A study of rage in the era of asynchronous transmission!
Perhaps there exist scholarly texts about this condition but— given that novels are my preferred technology for encountering ideas— I am selfishly glad to have found the analysis in fictional form.
There are typos in the translation which is mildly perturbing in a Van Halen brown M&Ms way but we’ll overlook that.
Read if you like: Annie Ernaux, the films of Aki Kaurismäki, Solvej Balle, and…Marshall McLuhan??
"N" STUFF
(The following is unrelated to literature, that’s why it is in the “N” STUFF section)
LIKE WHITE LOTUS BUT BETTER, SHORTER
The Last of Sheila (1973) is a gin fizz in movie form—it was cowritten by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim, need I say more? Well I’ll say a little more. Sondheim was famously obsessed with cryptic crosswords and elaborate puzzles; his talent for cluemaking and wordplay paired with campy black comedy set on a decadent cruise in the Mediterranean= ideal summer escapism programming. It is easy to find online.
AND DON’T CALL ME SHIRLEY
Go see Naked Gun! There's nothing like guffawing in a room full of strangers. It is the most accessible form of communal self-transcendence this side of church. Naked Gun is stupidity perfected...polished to a gleam...America still reigns supreme in a handful of things, the big studio comedy being one of them. Who knows, if we go see them in theater those Hollywood bigwigs might make a few more.
A BRIEF THOUGHT ON BRIBES
A friend recently got back from a foreign country and was telling me about the local bribing customs. Juice was the term of art. Whenever my friend went through an official process the attendant would say eg, “I wish I could help you, if only I had a little juice”—and that was the cue for handing over a bundle of cash. From the sounds of it my friend was juiced relentlessly.
My own bribing experiences have all taken place on a different continent, and were consistently cloaked in the face-saving language of a “fee” or a “fine” or a “duty” or a “tip.” Which, in retrospect, was a real courtesy on the part of the extorter—to dress up the demand in the garb of a legitimate transaction. (Although for some bribees, I’m now realizing, this might have made it more humiliating?)
By the way, I will be appearing In Conversation with Kate Riley on August 21 at McNally Jackson books to celebrate her new novel, Ruth. Please come if you are able. First I’ll ask her some questions (like “Where do you get your ideas at” and “What is your social security number”) and then it will be your turn to interrogate Kate.
The book is astonishing; would recommend to readers of Helen DeWitt, Nell Zink and Vladimir Nabokov. I’ve known Kate since we were 16 so am confident in my assertion that she is among the funniest and most interesting people on earth.
Feel free to send reader mail or book recommendations to mollybethyoung@gmail.com. Your remarks may be included in a future edition so don’t write anything that could get you fired. Or better yet, DO but include a preferred pseudonym. What your employer doesn’t know won’t hurt them.
Thank you for reading. Farewell.
-Molly