Dirda on Books

Michael Dirda (The Washington Post)

Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.

Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or rediscovering some minor Victorian classic. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. He particularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts.

These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003) and his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland" (Norton, 2003). In the fall of 2004 Norton will bring out a new collection of his essays and reviews. He is currently working on several other book projects, all shrouded in the most complete secrecy.

Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio, and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Montaigne, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell, P.G. Wodehouse and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, The Ghost Story Society and The Wodehouse Society. He enjoys teaching and was once a visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Central Florida, which he misses to this day.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: "Favorite Fantasy Literature": One should start young--Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" (the drawings reflect true genius) and Chris Van Allsburg's "The Polar Express." Neither was around in time for my childhood, but there are always children and grandchildren....

Area movie houses currently have a delightful cardboard art display of the Polar Express climbing up a circular snow-enshrouded mountain (apparently another route to the pole) for a movie version to be released this holiday season. Thanks much.

Michael Dirda: Welcome, Bienvenue, Willkommen im Cabaret, im Cabaret. . . No, that's something else. WElcome to Dirda on Books. For the next hour we'll discuss anything and everything about information retrieval from traditional sources. Our subtheme this week is favorite fantasy novels or stories.
And with that, let's turn to the questions on a drizzly September day in Washington.

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Michael Dirda: THere was of course a question or note at the end of that just sent posting, and I forgot to address it in my haste, my eagerness to get started.
Obviously, children's literature is chockablock with great fantasy picture books and novels. My own favorite children's writer/illustrator is William Joyce, and A Day with Wilbur Robinson my favorite of his books. In it a young boy visits his friend Wilbur who lives in mansion populated by eccentrics, mad scientists, returning spaceman, and all the other wonderful populuxe sf and fantasy characters of a 1950s childhood.
From there I'd move on to Daniel Pinkwater--e.g. Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy from Mars and The Snarkout Boys and the Avocado of Death, followed perhaps by the Dido Twite novels of Joan Aiken, Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea trilogy, then maybe Philip Pullman's Golden Compass and its sequels. But I've overlooked James Stevenson's wonderful Grandpa tall tales, e.g. That Terrible Halloween Night--what a great book. Oh, there's no end to wonderful children's books.

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Dallas, Tex.: In keeping with this week's discussion topic, my "Fab 5" for fantasy in the last seventy years are:

Bridge of Birds (Hughart) -- comic adventures in set in ancient mythic China. The story shifts gears from a high-spirited romp to a wondrous ending.

Earthsea Trilogy (Le Guin) -- I haven't read this in almost 25 years, but it was one of my favorites growing up. My kids are almost old enough for these books, and I'm looking forward to reading this series to them. (Haven't tried reading the more recent books in the series.)

Little, Big (Crowley) -- American family saga with fairies. Lovely writing. Harold Bloom thinks highly of this book.

Mort (Pratchett) -- there's not too much humorous fantasy around. Pratchett does it best. I always imagine this story looking like a Monty Python movie. Guards! Guards! is my other favorite book in the Discworld series with its combination of fantasy and police procedural.

Lord of the Rings (Tolkien) -- like I need to say anything about this one.

Books ranked just below these are: Dune, Perdido Street Station (liked the combination of fantasy, sci-fi, and horror - is horror a sub-genre of fantasy?), The Man Who Was Thursday, and The Once and Future King.

Gormenghast and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell are on my "to read" list and could push one of the above out of the top 5.

Top children/young adult fantasy: Harry Potter, Wrinkle in Time, The Dark Is Rising, and Mary Stewart's Merlyn Trilogy. (I haven't read Philip Pullman's Dark Materials series since I'm a little leery of it after hearing that the underlying message is critical of organized religion, but I think I may try taking it on in the future.)

Michael Dirda: Wonderful list. It's a pity that Hughart only wrote those three novels about Master Li and No. Ten Ox. They are quite wonderful--kind of a Chinese Sherlock Holmes in a fantasy China. I've never read Mary Stewart's Arthurian novels.
Horror by the way is sometimes referred to as dark fantasy.

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Westbrook, Maine: My wife just had our first child last week, a daughter, and I have started to read War and Peace for the second time. I feel like I am catching up with old friends and seeing some of the characters much differently this time with ten more years under my belt. Sorry for the sleep-deprived ramble, my question is do you have a favorite translator? I originally read the Signet version by Dunnigan because it was recommended in college. I am now reading the everyman library version and have been dissapointed (it doesn't seem as rich and I actually like the French phrases sprinkled into the text).

Thank you for the chats. Although she is only 1 week old, my daughter enjoys it when I read to her from your last book!

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. If you like the Dunnigan, you should reread that. Are you currently reading the Maude translation of W and P? That has long been the standard and is easily available. You probaly should avoid Garnett, though she is brilliant, I think, with Chekhov.

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Twickenham, London: At lunch on Sunday, someone led an assault on reading rubbish. Someone else argued that it's only by reading rubbish that one can appreciate good literature.
This seems to me largely wrong. Either you enjoy a book, find that it resonates, transports, provokes you -- or it doesn't. In other words, it's relative to the reader, not other books.
That said, the relief of ending a bad book and starting a good one is huge. And the salty dolcelatte was great after a rather bland cheddar...

Michael Dirda: Yes, one needs to try all kinds of books to find those that appeal most to one's particular sensiblity. But it is important not to settle into a rut--one does grow and change.
As for rubbish: There's good rubbish (Robert E. Howard's Conan stories) and there's bad rubbish (Judith Krantz's Dazzle).

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Baltimore, Md.: Trying to decide which fantasy novel is my favorite, I scanned my bookshelves. Several titles often mentioned in these chats came to hand: John Crowley's "Little, Big;" Ursula K. LeGuin's "Earthsea" series. Other old favorites beckoned: Peter S. Beagle's "The Innkeeper's Song" for its deft placement of characters with thoroughly modern sensibilities in a medieval/magical setting; E. R. Eddison's "The Worm Ouroboros" for its fantastical use of language; the novels of R. A. MacAvoy (whatever happened to MacAvoy anyway? Twenty years ago she was The Next Big Thing.)

But the one I couldn't get past was the worst-written, silliest book on my shelves: "Conan the Usurper," in the brittle Lancer paperback I bought for a dime in 1968 at the Robert Frost Intermediate School used book sale. As I re-read "The Treasure of Tranicos" last night, it didn't matter that the prose is lame, that the story is racist, or that Arnold Schwarzenegger has debased the franchise (to mention just a few of the obvious problems). All that mattered was re-capturing the feeling of being eleven years old again and having a magical world laid out before me. It seems to me that that's what fantasy is all about.

Michael Dirda: Note--and this was purely happenstance--that I pointed to Conan as good rubbish, though I far prefer the original Howard stories to the later ones by various continuators (L.Sprague de Camp, the youthful Robert Jordan).
Actually I rather like the Conan movies--the first is the greater, but I'm fonder of the second. I certainly wish that Arnold had kept playing a barbarian rather than talking like one in public.

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Bethesda, Md.: Where does magical realism end and fantasy begin? Are they both points on the same continuum?

Michael Dirda: When your publisher wants you to have a mainstream audience, you write magic realism. When your book is aimed at a tried and true niche audience, you write fantasy.

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New Bedford, Mass.: Dear Mr. Dirda, I can't resist getting into the best fantasy question -- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell is wonderful although it takes a while to become wonderful. At times it reminded me a lot of Joan Aiken and her sister Jane Aiken Hodge -- not a bad company for a first novel.

I can't do just one books so I nominmate -- China Mieville for Perdido Street Station, Susan Copper for the Dark is Rising Series, and Neil Gaiman for the Sandman series -- Tempted to add American Gods.

Queston have you read anything of Mary Gentle's? I've just begun her Ash, A Secret History orderd in one volume for England.It's unlike any fantasy I've read before and when I finish may make my greats list.
Sorry for the long post.

Michael Dirda: My friend John Clute gave me a copy of Ash a couple of years back, and it's been sitting on my shelf, looking down at me guiltily. Or rather I've been looking up at it, guiltily. But Mary Gentle is a writer a bit like Mieville, and she is worth your time. I speak from the assurances of friends.
Joan Aiken is a lot funnier and faster moving than JS and Mr. N: The latter is a very good book, and an ambitious one, but I don't think it will become a modern classic in the Little Big class. I love to be wrong about things like this.

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Lexington, Ken.: Michael, I'm not sure what the 'best' fantasy of the last seventy years is -- I'll leave that to the experts and the critics. But my favorite by far of the last few years is 'The Light Ages' by Ian MacLeod. Its setting is an alternate semi-'Victorian' age in the middle of an Industrial Revolution powered by a 'magical' substance that can 'change' exploited workers. It's told as a bildungsroman by a young revolutionary who seeks to change the society. The writing is beautiful, but the real charm of the novel is the voice of the narrator as he grows into awareness. Think Dickens crossed with Mieville.

Michael Dirda: At first I thought you wrote DIckens crossed with Melville. Interesting that China is getting to be a recognizable commodity. It does help, I'm convinced, to have a great name: I mean really, you couldn't come up with something sexier than China Mieville if you tried, and that's his real monicker. And of course he photographs well, like Neil Gaiman. Now Connie Willis is as good a writer as either, and she is much loved, but Connie Willis doesn't sound rather too easy-going somehow, without Presence.
Many thanks for the mention of the MacLeod--a copy of which also resides on my Guilty Shelf.

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New York, N.Y.: Do you like Gore Vidal? What do you regard as his best book?

Michael Dirda: I like his nonfiction best, and so his best book is United States, a gigantic collection of his essays.

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Washington, D.C.: I hate to be the fly in the ointment (OK, not really), but I have never "got" fantasy literature. In fact, it really irks me. Dragons, warlocks, magicians and the usual cast of "fantastic" (but usually mundane at bottom) characters just strike me as tiresome. There is so much really great literature to be read, literature that truly engages the human condition, it's seems a shame to waste time on yet another fantasy romance. Just thought I'd cast my vote.

Michael Dirda: You have to realize that only a small subset of fantasy deals with dragons and warlocks in the way you suggest. Fantasy is literature that allows for thought experiments, world-building, archetypal situations, and highly original prose styles. It's not by accident that many cutting-edge writers point to fantasy writers as models or inspiration. Alice in Wonderland, The Wind in the Willows, Nineteen Eighty Four--these too are fantasies.

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New York, N.Y.: Could you explain your recent reference to the Silver Fork Society? Also, would you say an Antiquarian Thriller is strictly about books?

Michael Dirda: Silver Fork novels were novels about the social life of the Regency, and they tend to be obsessed with manners, repartee, and political gossip. The most famous example still somewhat read is Bulwer Lytton's Pelham, the original dandy novel. Of course, I back-dated the term for Jonathan Strange which takes place in the decade just before the actual Silver Fork novels.
An "antiquarian romance" is my coinage--so acknowledged in the Encylcopedia of Fantasy, he said immodestly--for books like Foucault's Pendulum or Lempriere's Dictionary. The hero, often with a heroine, discovers some anomaly in a manuscript, painting, work of art, which leads to the uncovering of some vast conspiracy at work, most often one that has been going on for centuries. The couple are then targeted by the secret group and must try to expose it or defeat it. There are lots of variants, but you can see how Charles Palliser, Arturo Perez REverte, Dan Brown and a dozen others fit the definition.

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Non-fantasy Question: I saw in the NYT a review of The Accidental American by James Naughtie, and I started wondering...what do you think is the best biography of a British leader from the past 50 years?

washingtonpost.com: James Naughtie will be online tomorow at 3:30 p.m. ET to discusses his new book "The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency."

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Is the biography of the past 50 years or the British leader? If the former, I might say, Blake's Disraeli. But I don't read political biographies very often. If the latter, I have no idea.

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Takoma Park, Md.: My favorite fantasies are the Alice books. Second would have to be Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omen's, if that counts.

Followed by the All of a Kind Family series -- fantasy because no family of seven children ever got along that well In Real Life.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Rockville, Md.: The first poster mentions children's fantasy, so I'l like to chime in wit ha favorite of my own. I actually discovered Diana Wynne Jones as an adult but she's definitely one of my favorite authors. All her characters are just so human, no matter how fantastic the story. The bad parents in so many of her books ring especially true, and she really understands cats.

Michael Dirda: Oh, I love Diana Wynne Jones--do you know her satirical Tough Guide to Fantasy, in which she traces all the cliches and stereotpyes of the genre? I'm particularly fond of her very complicated fantasy Hexwood.

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Silver Spring, Md.: Apart from the propaganda -- isn't Ayn Randa terrific writer? I find her style and phrasing quite good. And her character development also superb. The Fountainhead is a great read, a fantastic story (again propaganda aside) and I am now reading Atlas Shrugged.

Michael Dirda: Rand is a wonderfully melodramatic writer, and I've often thought her model must be someone like Eugene Sue (author of The Mysteries of Paris and The Wandering Jew). And like Sue she includes, for me, unpalatable political ideas. The world described in Atlas Shrugged is great if you're a supergenius, but for the ordinary man and woman there really isn't any place. And Rand doesn't care a fig for them really. But I read Atlas Shrugged at the age of 14 and couldn't put it down. Now I do nothing but put it down. The truth is probably in between.

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Kingstowne, Va.: Since having my first child, I've had no chance to maintain my 65-book-per-year reading pace. Indeed, I've only read a handful of novels this year. Though I am anticipating Philip Roth's new historical novel next month and Tom Wolfe's satirical take on modern college campuses, due in November. Have you heard any advance buzz on these, and do you plan to read them? Thanks

Michael Dirda: I plan to read one of them at least.

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SciFiGirl: Since many of my favorite author's have already been mentioned, I'll put a plea in for Connie Willis. She toes the line between fantasy and science fiction, but the lack of actual science in her books makes me slot her in the fantasy category.

I'll also mention Jonathan Lethem at this juncture, but he also toes the line.

Where does fantasy end and science fiction begin?

The worst fantasy? My vote goes to the Dragonlance series, which I was tricked into in college. Oh, and the film Outlaw of Gor, immortalized on MST3K.

Michael Dirda: Outlaw of Gor--hmmm, I always thought the Gor novels were just sado-masochistic fantasies with lots of beautiful women made into sex slaves.
In fantasy, magic works. In science fiction, science works like magic.

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Lansdale, Pa.: Hi Michael,
I've been reading a lot of fantasy in the past year and have encountered some outstanding works, so am eager to respond to the suggested topic of "favorite fantasy novels of the past 70 years with reasons." To limit my list, I've tried to pick books I don't recall having been mentioned in these chats. These three come from the late ‘40s to mid ‘50s.
"The Broken Sword" by Poul Anderson - Anderson's language and its rhythm are perfectly chosen to tell this violent and tragic saga. The story is of a changeling pair and their involvement in a war between elves and trolls at the close of the first millennium CE. The sexy, amoral, very un-Tolkienlike elves are much closer to their folkloric originals. The humans are well drawn, distinctly not modern in behavior or attitudes, passionate in love and anger, and occasionally improvising verse to express their emotions.
"Conjure Wife" by Fritz Leiber - A masterful control of narrative and point-of-view slowly builds the tension in this tale as a series of uncanny happenings which surround a college professor and his wife escalate until not only lives but souls are believably at risk.
"Darker Than You Think" by Jack Williamson - Another supernatural war, this one between humans and an ancient race of were-creatures and set in a modern university town. Told in the first person by a cynical newspaper reporter, the novel has a noir-ish tone appropriate to its sequence of betrayals and revealed secrets.
This period seems like something of a high-water mark in American fantasy, before the influence of Howard and Tolkien generated so many imitators. This is also the period of Vance's ‘The Dying Earth' (another favorite, which I know you've often championed) and Fletcher Pratt's ‘The Well of the Unicorn' and ‘The Blue Star', both very interesting and worthwhile books, if not perhaps quite on the level of the other works mentioned. John Myers Myers' ‘Silverlock' also comes from the late 40's; I know it's highly regarded by many writers, but I have yet to read it. Are you familiar with Myers' book?

Michael Dirda: I read the first half of Silverlock and got bogged down. It's a clever idea: the hero is marooned in some land where he meets all kinds of heroes from fantasy. But somehow the story moves slowly, almost leadenly.
I like your other choices very much. I was lucky enough to meet Poul Anderson once--he was a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, and author of the great Sherlockian pastiche "The Martian Crown Jewels." And my friend David Streitfeld got Fritz Leiber to autography Conjure Wife for me--it's one of the best chilling little thrillers, positing a world in which women are witches (largely unbeknownst to men).

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Washington, D.C.: Fantasies (off the beaten track, I think):
1 "Lest Darkness Fall" by S. Sprague DeCamp. I believe that this was the original "alternate history" novel. An American classics professor finds himself in Rome under the Goths and tries to avert the coming dark ages.
2. The Lord Darcy stories by Randall Garrett. Darcy is a Sherlock Holmes-type living in a 20th century in which magic is real, is based on clearly understood principles and is studied as we study physics, and what we call science is viewed as necromancy.
3. "The Deed of Paksanarrion" by Elizabeth Moon. A peasant's daughter runs away to join an army. This is placed in the Tolkein universe, but is completely original and I prefer it to the "Hobbitt."
4. "The Hound and the Falcon," by Judith Tarr. In the period of the Crusades, Elves exist and are persecuted by a Church order as not having souls.
5. The "Riddle-Master" trilogy by Patricia A. McKillip. In this universe riddles are studied the way we study physics, a land-ruler has a mental connection to every living thing in his/her land and magic pervades. I found this trilogy unique and enthralling and have been unable to finish any other work of this author.

Michael Dirda: Interesting list. Certainly Too Many Magicians, the one Lord Darcy novel, is a classic Locked-Room Mystery as well as a fine fantasy. I enjoyed it a great deal, though I guessed the trick from the very first page. I would say more, but fear ruining the novel for others.

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Shady Grove, Md.: Best Fantasy author: Guy Gavriel Kay. The most lyrical of the lot. "A Song for Arbonne" is my all-time favorite, although my SO thinks the Fionavar Tapestry series is better. The quality of his writing, characters and plot for Arbonne were really put in relief for me as I was also reading "Pillars of the Earth" by Ludlum at the same time--what clunky prose.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. I've heard that Kay was good, but have never read any of his books.

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Bethesda, Md.: A few random questions:

Ever hear of an unbound book sold in a box that could be reshuffled in any combination and still make sense?

Do you always go by "Michael," or ever by "Mike" or "Mick?" Any other nicknames from now or in the past?

Have The Simpsons redeemed itself for you? I'm still a bit in shock over Maude Flanders' death (has it been 2 years already?)

Michael Dirda: 1) There are several books of this kind, one by Marc Saporta and another by B.S. Johnson. I own the Saporta, and would like to own the Johnson. For some reason--too much shuffling going on maybe--I can never remember their titles.
2) As a child I was Michael or Michaelo (can't tell you how to spell it Mee Kye Low); as a teenager Mike; to college friends Dryden; and then once I started writing Michael, since I signed my full name to my pieces. I'm now pretty universally Michael, though a few people call me Mike. I will often introduce myself as Mike Dirda. My middle name is Damian, a confirmation name and that of my father's father.

I still like The Simpsons but don't watch it with any regularity any longer.

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Bethesda, Md.: Who are your favorites among Canadian fiction writers, and why?

Michael Dirda: Oh, a lot of the obvious people: Robertson Davies, Northrop Frye (I can read his criticism just for the prose and the clarity of the mind), Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje. I also liked very much Mercy Among the CHildren, by a guy with three names like David Richards Wilson, but not that.
I like them for different reasons--Davies's grand storytelling, Frye's prose, Atwood's range, Ondaatje lyricism, Mercy's naturalist vigor and morality. I don't think of any of them as representative Canadians; I think of them as good writers. I despise nationalism in all its forms.

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Ashcroft, BC: I don't know if it qualifies as fantasy (a genre with which I'm not really that well-versed), but Norton Juster's THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH has been a favourite since I had it read to me by my teacher in Grade 5. I've gone back and re-read it several times since, and have read it once to my seven-year-old son, who loved it. Another fantasy favourite is THE GOLDEN PINE-CONE by Catherine Anthony Clark, originally published in 1950. Clark, who was born in England, moved to the Kootenay area of British Columbia after WWI and incorporated many native myths and legends of the area into her fantasy fiction, which makes a nice change from the more traditional British-based fantasies for children. My son loved it, too.

Michael Dirda: I recently bought a first of The Phantom Tollbooth in a slightly ratty jacket because it is such an original and delightful book. I've read it twice and listened to Claire Bloom read it on an audio book. The Golden Pine-Cone is only a name to me, but does sound terrific.
I've always regretted that I never read any children's literature, with a capital L, while growing up. No Charlotte's Web, no Narnia, nada. The closest I came were novels like Journey to the Center of the Earth. Mostly I loved boys adventure stories.

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Germantown, Md.: The unbound book: is the B.S. Johnson you speak of the same Johnson of whom Mr. Pratchett speaks so highly?

Michael Dirda: Indeed. I've just acquired a new biography of B.S. Johnson by Jonathan Coe--ordered from England by a friend of this discussion group for me.
The Johnson novel that you can find most readily in America is the quite funny Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry. Well worth looking for. A kind of gallows humor account of an accountant gone murderous.

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Takoma Park, Md.: The B S Johnson book is available used for over $120. NOTHING is that good.

Michael Dirda: Actually, a first of Henry Green's Nothing--in a very good jacket--might go for half that. Of course, Loving, Living, and Party-Going go for much more.

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Maryland: My fourth grader's class has started focusing on fantasy books. They are reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Children's fantasy books are a lot of fun, both for kids and adults. And Dahl has a definite cutting edge to him that grownups can appreciate.

Michael Dirda: Dahl is a superb writer--but he can be disturbing. Just yesterday I bought a copy of The Witches as a gift for a charming 12 year old girl. It's funny, thrilling and a bit scarey, so should be perfect. But sometimes Dahl can make his characters and themes too dark--the grotesquely evil teachers, the overworked rather African-like minions of Willy Wonka, etc etc. In a long piece on Dahl I once called him the Evelyn Waugh of children's literature and I still think this about right.

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Austin, Tex.: I hope I'm not too late to submit a question. Have you had the chance to read, or do you plan to review, the release of Sandor Marai's Casanova in Bolzano? If so, can you give us a hint of what it's about? I remember you being a great fan of his previously released "Embers." Thanks!

Michael Dirda: I did admire Embers greatly, but haven't seen the new book yet and don't know what it's about. Since I only write for Book World these days, I'm not as up on the publishing season as I used to be when I also worked as an assigning editor.

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Dallas, Tex.: Andrew Lang's fairy tales (start with the Blue book) are great to read to older children that enjoy fairy tales. These versions are darker than the Disney-fied versions we're used to. The Juniper Tree illustrated by Maurice Sendak is great, also.

Thanks

Michael Dirda: Yes, to both. Randall Jarrell--my hero--translated four of the stories for THe Juniper Tree. But as Auden used to say, a knowledge of fairy tales is essential to any literate human being.

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Charlottesville, Va.: I'd like to throw Margaret Atwood into consideration. Wouldn't "Handmaids Tale" qualify as fantasy? Although some may consider her description of the American future more "horror"

Michael Dirda: Sure.

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Rockville, Md.: In recent years there has been a mini-explosion in the publication of popular, best selling biographies of the founding fathers: Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Hamilton with more I hear on the way. What do you think is the reason for this boomlet and the books' popularity and which of these works do you consider the best? They present very different views of the charcters involved; one book's hero is another book's evil genius.

Michael Dirda: I'm rather astonished by this boomlet myself. I suspect that the immense popularity of Edmund Morris's Theodore Roosevelt led to publishers commissioning lives of other famous presidents and Founders. They chose good, popular historians to do the job, people who excel at narrative history. Because serious fiction has often been so demanding, many people have turned to biography and historyy for the pleasures of storytelling, and Great Americans usually have great stories surrounding them.

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Courthouse, Arlington, Va.: Hi Michael, I would like to get back into reading poetry again since I haven't really done it in about ten years. Can you give me a handful or two of poets that I should look at again as a base and then any more you feel are pertinent? I already, of course, have some in mind, but thought I'd get your suggestions. Thanks

Michael Dirda: I'm presuming you mean contemporary poets--the classic poets you would know, right? I'd try books by, ideally selected or collected volumes, by Anthony Hecht, Jane Kenyon, Eavan Boland, Richard Wilbur, Donald Justice, William Logan, Dana Gioia, David Lehman, Ted Kooser, Jane Hirschfield, Stanley Plumly, John Ashbery, Brad Leithauser, David Ferry, Rosanna Warren, and not least David Baker and Ann Townsend (look for Dime Store Erotics or her forthcoming collection from Sarabande, The Coronary Garden.) Of course, another good way to go is to check out The Year's Best American Poetry volumes--a good way to sample a lot of poets.

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Munich, Germany: The Fall Preview certainly has some interesting stuff on it. I just wanted to ask how you consider Popular Fiction to differ from Literary Fiction. Is Pulp Fiction just another (outdated) name for Popular Fiction?

Michael Dirda: Pulp fiction is grittier than Popular Fiction. It also calls to mind 1920s magazines like Black Mask and 1950s paperbacks from Gold Medal. Popular Fiction is just that--fiction designed as entertainment rather than art.

And that, alas, brings us to the end of another session of Dirda on Books. Till next Wednesday at 2, keep reading!

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