Fans of poet Kenneth Koch (Koch’s Coffee House output was reported in the final installment of my BEA coverage) and David (Fraud) Rakoff might be interested to know that Rakoff can be heard reading Koch’s “To Jewishness” over at Nextbook.

Technorati Tags: Kenneth Koch, poetry, David Rakoff, poems

Due to other obligations, my daytime posting will have to be brief. But I wanted to briefly touch upon the strange legacy of Wallace Stegner. Stegner is a guy that I’ve never been all that crazy about as a novelist. This may be framing Stegner’s work too generally, but he seems to me someone who might be styled the Merchant-Ivory of literature (and I mean this in the insufferable sense of the comparison), meaning that with a Stegner novel, you’re going to get some tale of a crotchety old man, endless florid details about landscape and nature, and a storyline that is about as predictable as the perrennial constant of San Francisco weather. A Stegner novel is largely about the elegant prose and the way that humans are ensnared into a natural landscape. This is not to suggest that Stegner’s voice is without validity or his prose without grace. Right now, I’m reading The Specator Bird (it’s a book club selection) and am struck with how the novel takes something as banal as rustification and profiles it from multiple perspectives (it is honorable from the point of view of the main couple in their seventies; it is dishonorable from the perspective of a brash Italian novelist who comes to visit about a third of the way into the book). But simultaneously, the scenes with the countess (as profiled in the diary-within-the-novel) feature some of the stiffest dialogue one can endure. And unless Stegner is trying to make an internal point about the prosaic way that the retired protagonist Joe Allston is chronicling his life, I’m truly baffled why we are permitted such redundancies. (To contrast this with proper use of redundant dialogue, I refer to the cocktail party banter that proliferates William Gaddis’ The Recognitions. The banter itself is banal, but it almost serves almost as a time capsule portraying the intonations of a particular scene (affluent New York). One senses this, as one sifts through its preposterous questions and the conversational arcs that will not die. I wish I could say that I felt this same instinct in Stegner.)

To some degree, Stegner’s work strikes comparisons to that of Frederic Prokosch, another novelist who was criticized for prioritizing environment over the human spirit. But while I can accept this criticism to some degree, I nevertheless find Prokosch’s novels to be coruscating diamond mines that dare to portray a rather grim view of the human condition through metaphors and imagery. A Prokosch novel will frequently involve an American or Westerner (or a group of some sort, as in The Seven Who Fled) who is traveling around the world trying to find an identity, only to become acquainted with the seamy underbelly often left unmentioned and unexposed. Whereas a Stegner novel will essentially reveal what seems to me two obvious and less original truisms: (1) humans must come to terms with their past just before passing on; and (2) nature is strong and may consume humanity at a passing whim.

But it is Prokosch’s subtext that speaks to me more. And yet I wonder if this is a fair criticism because what I personally perceive as ambitious may be old hat to a literary traveler. So the rhetorical question I offer is this: Is a novelist worth less if he dares to deal with thematic dead horses? Further, if there are any Stegnerites in the peanut gallery (and there are certainly many in the Bay Area), do you have some hints and/or defenses for how and why to read Stegner?

Technorati Tags: Wallace Stegner, Frederic Prokosch, Gaddis, dead horse, books, literary, themes

Over at the LBC blog, the minority opinion for Case Histories has been unveiled. Unsurprisingly, there’s a good deal of controversy. You’d think that some of us were swing voters resigning from the Supreme Court at the last minute. But I’d like to address the main concern — chiefly, the “solo songs of appreciation and endorsement” that are allegedly sung by Mark Sarvas, Scott Esposito and myself.

Yes, it’s true that the three of us are now playing in an emopunk trio called the Banvilles (with Lizzie occasionally stepping in to provide sleazy lyrics while tying Scott up to the ride cymbal stand). You can catch us every other Tuesday at various nightclubs in Santa Monica. We even have a special performance set for August in Helsinki. But since the band itself has only been together for six months, I think it’s safe to say that nobody is polished enough to embark on a solo career. The problem, beyond the fact that individually and collectively we have very specific tastes that prevent us from performing with “appreciation and endorsement,” is that while we toss books at our audience, the performance highlights are hinged upon mock fistfights between Mark and I that are intended to evoke the animosity of the Gallgher brothers.

No one is injured in these staged battles, but it does get the crowd going. Because most of the audience understands that both the performance and the stage presence are intended to exude a certain informed passion for books and that everyone has different sensibilities. After the end of a performance, the trio gets together to watch a 16mm print of “Free to Be, You and Me” to get the adrenaline out of our system. Sometimes, we share small cartons of milk and give each other hugs that serve as surrogates to mantras of self-affirmation. Opinions are respected and informed dissent is reclaimed.

Really, at the end of the day, it’s the music that counts. And we sincerely hope that most people comprehend that our songs cut across a wide swath of feelings.

If this doesn’t clear anything up, I invite any and all readers to send clothespins (also known as C47s) to my P.O. Box, ideally with an explanatory note if you happen to remain perplexed. I will happily distribute these clothespins on to the appropriate parties so that they can affix these painful items to their nostrils. Hopefully, this will preclude any given LBC member’s nose from staying in the air too long.

Technorati Tags: LBC, clothespins, amateur emopunk, Santa Monica, controversy, explanation, nostrils, Case Histories, Helsinki, Marlo Thomas

• The gang Long Sunday talks with RotR fave China Miéville. Some of the topics discussed: genre, “voracious” narrative, the constraint of plot, and Jane Eyre. And what’s even crazier is that these two interviewers are just getting started. (via Mumpsimus)
• Indisputable proof that JSF is a younger J-Franz: “I remember, as a kid, I used to read the phone book and think that in 100 years, all these people would be dead.” Next thing you know, we’ll be reading a lengthy New Yorker essay about how Heathcliff saved JSF at a young age.
• And speaking of the New Yorker, there’s a lengthy profile of Roald Dahl this week. I’m not sure if I buy the idea that adults have always hated him, particularly when Margaret Talbot doesn’t cite a lot of examples to prove her thesis. If it’s controversy that Talbot is after, I would contend taht Dahl, like any original children’s author, has received no more and no less the amount complaints as Shel Silverstein.
• Blogging: good or bad for authors? The Times is so obsessed with these blogging articles that I’m awaiting the inevitable “Blogging: With Clothes or Without?” article, which should successfully merge their ridiculously genteel approach to the risque with its obsession with blogs as the new voice or the new something.
• And here’s yet another inconsequential Gray Lady correction: “An article on June 10 about criticism of Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, over several derogatory remarks he made about Republicans paraphrased incorrectly from his comment during an appearance in San Francisco. He said that the Republican Party was ‘pretty much a white, Christian party’ – not that it was made up ‘only’ of white Christian conservatives.” You see? Big difference.
• In Korea, blogs are being taken seriously by publishers.
• Bruce Campbell is big on the Dayton, Ohio bestsellers list.
• Another reason to hate Microsoft: they’re spoonfeeding your kids. A new Office add-on, MS Student, offers book summaries of literature and a time management program for homework. It also features a Bill Gates-led instructional video on how to not pay attention and stare vapidly into space, associating the blackboard with the “evil of Apple.”
• There’s a new development in the “chick lit” debate: Christian women.
• H.L. Mencken in defense of the Enoch Pratt Library.
• Proving once again that the Book Babes are advancing culture better than any journalists of our time, we now find them rating the “top 10 fictional hunks.” You know, if you’re going to go down that silly route, why stop there? Why not rate the top 10 fictional penises? My vote goes for Portnoy.
• If litbloggers aren’t havens for kinky librarians, then clearly the wild orgy I had with five librarians over the weekend (which involved being tied up while three of them read excerpts of David Mitchell and the other two serviced me) means I’m doing something wrong.
• And I’d be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention the free download of Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen to tie in with the release of Magic for Beginners. To read more on Link, you can check out Gwenda Bond’s interview with her on these pages back in September.

Technorati Tags: Roald Dahl, Kelly Link, China Mieville, JSF, New York Times, Bruce Campbell, chicklit, Mencken, Book Babes, kinky librarians, litbloggers, Howard Dean.

M.J. Rose has put up a list of ten things not to do when publicizing your book. Beyond Rose’s troubling Miss Manners-style tone, as a man who tries to attend several readings a month, there are a few reality alerts that need to be addressed.

1. Most of the people who attend readings are probably not going to be familiar with your book, much less you. They are, as Stanley Elkin repeatedly suggested in George Mills, more likely to be there for the free food and wine. This in itself is not as ignoble as it sounds. Because this understandable impulse is walking hand in hand with some love or curiosity for literature. So it is possible for an author to win potential readers and book buyers over. However, reading your excerpt in a dry somnambulistic tone is not going to do the trick. It is essential for the aspiring author to not just entertain (in a manner that she is comfortable with), but to win potential readers and buyers over to her side. An author may have penned the best novel of the year, but if the author reads without feeling or enthusiasm, if the author doesn’t, say, find her voice within the dialogue of the characters, what then is the point of a reading? That means actually enjoying the book tour process (as much as it detracts you from your writing) or breaking out of the troubled template of reading followed by questions. Why not pick five people out of the crowd to enact certain characters from a book? Or reverse the questioning process. Ask the audience how often they write. Bring strange props or offer to do something nutty if a customer buys a book.

2. With rare exceptions, all press is good press. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If you are concerned with losing readers because of what you do or because of the tone of your book, then you probably shouldn’t be in this business. The minute that a book is published, it has already lost and found readers. Some folks (like me) may not want to read another self-absorbed memoir written by a middle-aged Caucasian going through a midlife crisis. Some folks may be averse to genre fiction. Some folks simply want to read a Dan Brown novel. If you’re concerned that some people aren’t going to be interested in you, then fuck ’em. Cater to the people who are going to be interested in your type of book. Your goal as an author is to locate the people who will be attracted to your voice and appeal directly to them without compromising who you are.

3. Some people are going to be annoyed with you no matter what you do. I’m not suggesting that authors become outright assholes, but I should point out that if you smile artificially towards someone (or offer passive-aggressive advice lists that reek of inexplicable and unvoiced fury), most humans will know that you’re putting on some kind of act. Find a genuine way to enjoy other people, even the ones you’re uneasy about. Because enthusiasm is infectious and there is always a common ground somewhere. Learn to be curious, courteous, yet remain true to yourself. If there’s some heckler in the crowd (and there will be at some point), responding in a calm, detatched, NPR-sounding way isn’t going to win you respect from yourself or from your reading audience. Find out where the guy’s coming from and don’t take it so personally.

4. For Christ’s sake, go to the trouble of talking with and thanking the booksellers. I’ve heard absolute horror stories from booksellers of certain authors (who shall remain unnamed) who treat the people behind the counter with utter disdain. As if they were dumbass baristas. Newsflash: Booksellers actually fucking read and they determine placement of your book. Besides, most of these folks are very nice. Talk to them, find out what these folks are reading and (here is where I agree with Rose) buy a book or three.

5. To a great degee, it is about you. You penned the book, you showed up, people are there for you. But this doesn’t mean it has be exclusively about you — far from it. So make it a conversation rather than an exposition.