Dirda on Books

Michael Dirda (The Washington Post)

Prize-winning critic Michael Dirda took 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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Baltimore, Md.: As a long time fan of E.F. Benson's Lucia and Miss Mapp books, I was intrigued to learn that someone (Tom Holt, I believe) had carried the story onward. And I see from the Benson website that Joan Aiken wrote a book centering around Lamb House (Mallards in the book). Are you or any of the chatters familiar with these? These dark winter nights seem to call for humor...

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! It's a bright sunny winter's day here in Westminster, Maryland, as I'm sitting in my office at McDaniel College and looking out the window. So far my classes--literary journalism and love in the western world==have been going fairly well, but teaching does take far more preparation than I remember. I'd never taught The Symposium or the Vita Nuova before, and I"ve spent a fair amount of time reading up on Plato's thought and reviewing courtly love and medieval romances. Great fun, but demanding.
At all events, it's quiet here in the office and I've just finished reading some Ezra Pound on the Provencal and Italian troubadours, so let's look at this week's questions.

E.F. Besnon. Yes, Tom Holt carried on the Lucia saga in style with Lucia in Wartime and Lucia Triumphant. I mentioned this, in passing, during a review of Holt's latest comic fantasy, In Your Dreams. Joan Aiken did write a book called The Haunting of Lamb House, which has sections on Jams and Benson. (Aiken also once wrote an introduction to Benson's collected ghost stories.)
Certainly any of these books would help brighten the long Frebruary ahead of us.

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Washington, D.C.: Currently, what are you reading?

Michael Dirda: I'm rereading C.S. Lewis's Allegory of Love and Denis de Rougemont's Love in the Western World. If all goes well, I'll be writing something about love for the Feb. 13 issue of Book World.

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Santa Fe, N.M.: I don't know how familiar you are with comic books, but my mother, a librarian, is trying to get some into her schools. Any suggestions?

Michael Dirda: Comics are everywhere these days, and it does take some disrimination to decide what to look at. Your mother might start by checking out the Comics Journal. There are also a number of ongoing projects to republish some classic sequences of Superman, Batman and the like. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman series is generally regarded as at the top of the genre. But mour Mom should also look for the two omnibus volumes of The Leage of Extraordinary Gentleman, the collected works of Harvey Pekar (American Splendor), the old Love and Rockets, and such revisionist classics as Watchmen, Ronin and American Flagg. But really there is far more going on with comics than I can keep up with.

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Las Vegas, NV: Dear Michael,

I just finished reading McCullers' The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Whew!; It deepened my appreciation of loneliness in the human condition. Hopefully I can start up Lawrence's Women In Love very soon. I have also decided (having read another's idea) to go to Hell for Lent--reading Dante's Divine Comedy, that is. I think I feel the flames under my feet already!;

Have you ever read a book and said, I wish I had written it first? The thought occurred to me not long ago, and though I have no answer of mine at the moment I am curious to know what others think.

And, of course, thanks for the chats!;

Michael Dirda: There are a number of writers whose sensibility seems close to mine--Montaigne, Stendhal, Chekhov, Cyril Connolly, for instance. Wistful, introspective, forgiving, etc etc. At an event I would like to possess something of their virtues and voices on the page. And so I would like to have written a book like Connolly's The Unquiet Grave, or some of Stendhal's more autobiographical works.

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Washington, D.C.: A technical question for you and your readers: I'm about to be transferred to Bangladesh -- a tropical, developing country. The heat & humidity there are oppressive, and I've already been warned about black mold growing on all of my possessions. I'm trying to decide which of my books to take with me for the next four years. Is there anything I can do to try to protect those books (either now or while in country) that do make the trip?

Michael Dirda: As the author of "Caring for Your Books"--a free divident of the Book of the Month Club, offered some 20 years ago--I can advise you not to take any books you care about. Unless you can maintain a steady temperature and lowish humidity, your books are likely to get mildewy and worse. If, though, you'll have air conditioning you'll be fine. Otherwise just bring replaceable paperbacks.

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Falls Church, Va.: Hello, Mr. Dirda,
I have a general question about the books that we choose to read. When I read, I tend to be interested in reading a lot of stuff by one particular author at a time. I feel that by doing so, I get a good sense for which characteristics of the work are the writer's personal quirks that are part of his personality and will show up, almost sub-consciously, in anything that he writes, and which things are the results of conscious decisions.
Do you think this is a valid way of reading?

Michael Dirda: This certainly sounds likely. The more you read of a particular author, the more you will understand his quirks and crotchets and obsessions. Also, there's much to be said for knowing an author or a subject thoroughly--it gives one an authority that nothing else will. Plenty of people have read one or two novels by, say, Dickens; but if you've read them all, you gain a power that only knowledge brings.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda (Looking good on C-SPAN2): I heard you compliment your youngest son--showing a youthful aptitude for Latin, wasn't it? He's also the boy I believe who gave me a nice steer toward Joan Aiken's Dido Twite. Just wondering, do you think you may have found someone to follow in your footsteps?

I know you loved your father dearly but kicking books out of your hands would seem less conducive than the kind of literary guidance your boys seem to be getting. Also, I've just completed Richard Adams's "Watership Down." Have you and your boys read it? Thanks much.

Michael Dirda: I've never read Watership Down, alas. My kids did read all those Redwall books about various forms of rodent--does that count?
The C Span reference, by the way, is to a program on I am Charlotte Simmons in which I was the vociferous liberal on the panel. I did dress in my Tom Wolfe double-breasted though.
Nate does read a lot, and he shares some of my own early passions--Sherlock HOlmes, Tarzan--but his father never had any flair for math or roller-blading.

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Washington, D.C.: What are your thoughts on Lytton Strachey as a biographer?

Michael Dirda: A wonderful stylist and an important force in the desacralization of Victorian biography/hagiography. But nobody reads Strachey now as a biographical authority--he is a minor master of English literature and his essays are models of balance, wit and irony. There are wonderful passages throughout his work, though--such as the last long sentence of Queen Victoria, or the brilliant description of Florence Nighingale, which says that she didn't triumph by being nice, but by the sheer force of an indomitable will.

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Bitter winter: Going through a tough time and I am looking for absolute and utter fluff to read. Any suggestions?

Michael Dirda: Fluff comes in many grades. Read classic golden-age mysteries by Agatha Christie or John Dickson Carr; read P.G. Wodehouse or James Thurber; read Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels or the early Tom Holts (e.g. Expecting Someone Taller). Try Georgette Heyer's wonderful regency romances.
All these books are superbly well done, so in one sense they are anything but fluff. But their aim is to divert, amuse and entertain.
Oh, if you can find a copy of my collection Readings, you might look at my list of 100 favorite comic novels for further leads.

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Chicago, Ill.: Do you know anything about Colin Dexter, or have suggestions on where to start with his books?

Michael Dirda: He writes the Inspector Morse books, and you probably should just start at the beginning. Or you might try a highpoint in the series, perhaps the early novel, The Dead of Jericho, or The Way Through the Woods.
Of course, John Thaw brought the character of Morse to life for millions in the fine British tv productions.

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Alexandria, Va.: In the courtly love vein, whose is your favorite retelling of the King Arthur legend?Are authors like von Eschenbach or Chetrien Des Troyes (sp?) at all comprehensible to a non-academic?

Michael Dirda: I like Malory myself, which sounds pretentious, but he reallyh is a master of English prose. But T.H. White's Once and Future King is certainly very enjoyable, especially The Sword in the Stone. I've never read things like Marion Zimmer Bradley's Mists of Avalon or Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset, both of which are said to be first rate.
Well, I worked through Wolfram and Chretien years ago in Middle High German and Old French, and enjoyed both books. There are good English translations of Parzival and all of Chretien's romances. Yvain is generally the most highly regarded.
But if you want to read a medieval romance I recommend the Penguin edition of Tristan, which opens with Thomas's Tristan before giving you Gottfried von Strassburg's version. This is the great poem of how passion can destroy a person from the inside out--or if you're more inclined to Wagner's view, how great love can lead one to an almost religious transcendence.

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Germantown, Md.: I've just seen the second of two movies based on the work of Andre Dubus (In the Bedroom and We Don't Live Here Anymore). Are there any of his books (mostly short story collections, I believe) that you'd recommend?

Michael Dirda: There's a Selected Stories. Dubus was primarily a short story writer.

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Oklahoma City, Okla.: In light of the classic dictum that someone should be required to read a book before they write one, your take on the spate of ghosted celebrity titles these days, even including "novels" by people like Pamela Anderson. What does it say about publishing that such drivel is marketed, while potentially quality work by real writers often cannot get published?

Michael Dirda: what it says is that celebrity drivel sells. One can only hope that such books earn enough money so that their publishers can afford to bring out some good books too.

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Cooperstown, N.Y.: Michael, I've recently been interested in reading more science books. Can you make any recommendations of personal favorites of yours?

Michael Dirda: Science books? Let's see: Curt Suplee's Physics in the Twentieth Century; Carl Sagan's The Dragons of Eden; the collections of essays on math by Martin Gardner; the works of Lewis Thomas, Freeman Dyson, Loren Eiseley (a wonderfully wistful stylist), John Gribbin, Ian Stewart, Timothy Ferris (Coming of Age in the Milky Way), and a number of others. I don't know this field well, and there are so many good popularizations out there that I suggest checking with your local librarian or perhaps any friends who are scientiests.

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Gaithersburg, Md.: I've kind of strangley found myself addicted to Russian literature out of a fluke. It's something of a hobby now. Do you have a favorite Russian author or one you would recommend? I am a big Dostoevski fan.

Michael Dirda: Crime and Punishment is one of my favorite novels, just as Notes from Underground is one of my favorite novellas: I am a sick man, I am a spiteful man. I think my liver is diseased.
What can I say? All the great Russians are worth reading--they are just incredible. But certainly you should read Pushkin's Eugene Onegin (Falen or Johnston translation), Lermontov's A Hero of OUr Time (Nabokov trans), Gogol's Dead Souls (Guerney trnas), a bunch of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, the donerful Oblomov (about a guy who doesn't want to get out of bed), Turgenev's elegant and melancholy novellas (The Torrents of Spring, First Love), and finally Chehkov and Babel's short stories.

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Munich, Germany: Has there been much notice in the States of the recent passing of the Israeli author, Ephraim Kishon?

I was quite surprised to read in the German press that Kishon was so popular in Germany. I've read an interview in a Berlin newspaper where Kishon was asked to comment on how difficult it was to write humorous fiction, but I've never read any of his novels.

Although Kishen spent time in a konzentration camp, he never wrote about these experiences. It's my personal opinion that with his willingness to forget about his traumatic wartime experiences, that he was in sync with many millions of Germans as well.

Michael Dirda: I am sorry to say that not only do I not know about of Kishon's books, I don't even know anything about him. My loss. I'll have to look out for his work--is it in English?

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Ashcroft, British Columbia: Your reader who seeks absolute 'fluff' may care to indulge in Graham Greene's TRAVELS WITH MY AUNT, which I only discovered recently. Witty stuff. It has, needless to say, led to further Greene purchases, and yet another dent in this month's book budget.

Michael Dirda: That's certainly the witties of Greene's novels. Most of the others may have their humorous elements, but it's certainly a lot darker.

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Alexandria, Va.: Mr. Dirda,

I will be leaving for Italy in roughly three months. What should read BEFORE I go to get a better sense of the history and the place?

Michael Dirda: A good guide book? The Companion Guides to Venice, Florence, Rome tend to be first rate and by literary folk.
Italy has such a rich heritage it's hard to know what to recommend. The most admired Italian novels of the past century have both been slightly on the margins--Italo Svevo's Confessions of Zeno (Trieste) and Lampedusa's The Leopard (Sicily).
There were, now that I think of it, some good nonfictional accounts of Italy: Luigi Barzini's The Italians (probably 40years old now), and a book or two by William Murray, of the New Yorker.
But I'd browse in the library or bookshop.

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Germantown, Md.: For the person from Cooperstown who wants to read more science books: ask the Washington Post's Joel Achenbach, a first-rate science writer himself, but also does a mean recommendation.

And, considering the poster's location, why not pick up "The Physics of Baseball"?

Michael Dirda: Good idea. But I presumed our poster was associated with the Glimmerglass Opera series. There's more to Cooperstown than baseball. (My wife lived there for two years.)

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Chicago, Ill.: Mr. Dirda,
What's the word on James P. Blaylock? Is he worth reading or should I stick with my Crowley and Wolfe? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: He's fun, one of the masters of steampunk (along with his friend Tim Powers). Try The Digging Leviathan or Homunculus.

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Endwell, N.Y.: The book jackets that turn me on are what I call "period" jackets. By that I mean jackets from the 1920's to the 1960's. I like the evocative look of them. Also I think many of them remind me of my mother's library, and my early reading days--not the 20's. My first comment, is this too low brow for you and your other quetioners?

Michael Dirda: Not at all too lowbrow. We contain multitudes. Some of those period jackets are worth quite a bit now. You can buy a first of the Maltese Falcon or The Great Gatsby for a thousand dollars or less. But if you want a copy in a good dj, expect to pay 25 to 50 times as much.

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Shady Grove, Md.: For the King Arthur person: There's also a marvelous John Steinbeck reworking of the early Arthur stories. Other takes on the once and future king include the Mary Stewart series, and somewhat obliquely Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar tapestry. If you stretch this, you can also kick in Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. It seems most of the modern adaptations have a philosophical ax to grind: White's political theory, Twain's education....

Michael Dirda: Yes, and then there's Thomas Berger's Arthur Rex. A bit naughty. Not to overlook Donald Barthelme's last book, The King, in which the Black Knight really is black.

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Elon, N.C.: Good Afternoon Michael, As today is the centennial of Ayn Rand's birth, I am remembering reading Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead at the age of 19. I even reread Atlas Shrugged -- probably because I didn't completely understand it the first time. I do think Gary Cooper as Howard Roark in the movie version of the Fountainhead was better than the book.
Any comments.
Thanks so much -- LOVE YOU ON WEDNESDAYS!

Michael Dirda: YOu don't love me the rest of the week?

OH, I used to love listening to Rand discourse on the radio--she had a thick Russian accent. She was so wonderfully full of herself. Did you know that she thought Mickey Spillane the leading American novelist of her time?
I think Rand's novels are great hokey fun--melodramatic and corny. Her philosophy, to my mind, is very elitist--she only cares about supergeniuses, though she encourages her followers to believe they are among this tribe.
I say all this because I read Atlas Shurgged when I wwas 14 and was simply swept away by its color and excitement. But back then I also loved Lloyd C. Douglas's biblial novels like The Robe and The Big Fisherman.

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Minnetonka, Minn.: Just finished Neil Gaiman's American Gods. On his website he listed the books that influenced his writing. What do you think of works of fiction that have bibliographies?

Michael Dirda: He doesn't list the books that influenced him in the actual novel. But Neil runs an active blog/website and I'm sure he needs to fill it up with material. No doubt a fan asked him to name the books that influenced him and so he did. I haven't seen his bibliography, but I felt that the novel's section about the idyllic town might easily have derived from the early work of Richard Matheson. All the Norse pantheon stuff could have come from various places. Eg. The Elder Edda or William Morris's retlling of the Volsungasaga.

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Accra, Ghana: Mr. Dirda,

Can you recommend novels about academic classicists? I enjoyed Robert Hellenga's "The Fall of a Sarrow" and Donna Tartt's "The Secret History." "The Last Samurai" isn't exactly about a classicist, but it's close and is one of my favorite books. Any suggestions?

By the way, if you enjoyed the Last Samurai, you may remember Sibylla's pining after a terribly expensive copy of Fraser's Ptolemaic Alexandria, "a wonderful work of scholarship which no home should be without". I visited Alexandria last summer and it was such an interesting, complicated, lovely city that I came home and sprung for Fraser's masterpiece, which does, in fact exist. Three volumes, one of text, one of notes, and one of bibliography. I have never read any more thoroughly documented work of history. The footnotes contain almost the entire text, in Greek, of a Greek tragedy based on the Exodus (mentioned in the Last Samurai) as well as enough fascinating minutiae to keep you from accomplishing anything useful whatsoever for hours on end.

Michael Dirda: There are a number of books about Alexandria, including a good one by Edmund Keeley called Cavafy's Alexandria. Of course, there's also the Durrell novels of the Alexandria Quartet.
Academic classicists--take a look at Ravelstein by Saul Bellow and The Human Stain by Philip Roth.
As it happens, I've been invited to attend a conference next year in Montreal devoted, in part, to the image of the classicist in modern fiction.

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Oxford, UK: Mr Dirda,
I just moved to England and spent some time browsing through my library. Imagine my surprise when I saw Sylvia Plath's work shelved in the British literature section -- I knew that she lived and wrote some of her poems in England, but I had always thought Plath was an American writer (at least this was the perspective in my American high school) ... why the discrepancy? Are both the States and England just eager to augument their roster of talented writers and lay claim to her?

Michael Dirda: Could she have become a British subject after marrying Ted Hughes?
I suppose librarians have to make judgment calls all the time--Henry James and Auden, for example, could go on either side of the Atlantic.

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Santiago, Chile: Mr. Dirda,

We'll be returning to the Washington in April after 1-1/2 years away. We'll have 3 months in DC and then we'll be off to Asia for 3 or 4 years. While we're back in DC I'd like to buy 50 or 60 paperbacks (popular fiction and detective novels and popular history) at used bookstores to take with me. Using half.com I'm able to get a great selection but each book is always a minimum of $4.25, which will be $250-350, which is a good chunk of money. Can you or others recommend any places in the greater Washington area to do some bargain shopping for paperbacks? Thanks for your help.

Michael Dirda: Washington still has a number of good used bookstores. But I would suggest checking out the Wheaton Library Book Sale Room--many paperbacks (and hardbacks) at bargain prices. Some are ex-library.

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New Bedford, Mass.: Sunday I caught the your Book TV discussion on I Am Charlotte Simmons, enjoyed the group have no plans to ever read the book on the grounds of why force myself to read what seems a mean spirited and rather vile piece of work. At the same time I was racng through Jonathan Carroll's White Apples. I closed the book and actually said, "That was brilliant!" Question is there any way to convince Book TV to cover writers who do matter? Life is unfair but why not a master writer?

Michael Dirda: Well, if Carroll didn't live in Vienna and he were attending a big conference in Washington, I suspect that he might get covered by Book TV. You need a peg of some sort too. We are talking about television.

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Atlanta, Ga.: Does there seem to be any increase or decrease in interest in classic writers of the Orient, besides in Murasaki? I'm thinking of Tu Fu, Cao Xueqin, Tagore, Lu Xun, Tanizaki Jun'ichiro and Zeami Motokiyo as prime examples.

Michael Dirda: I suspect that we'll be seeing a lot of interest in Arabic culture over the next few years. But these classic writers do have a steady audience--though I don't know the last author you list--and adventurous readers will always come to their books.

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Maitland, Fla.: For years I've been threatening to read The Bible and am now in Second Samuel. If anyone is looking for good stories, READ the Bible. I grew up in Kentucky and my dad used to tell stories of "Down in the Hills" where he grew up -- murder, betrayal, adultery and worse. Reading these stories makes me remember him so well. And now Faulkner is calling me back too

Michael Dirda: Ah, yes, those judges and patriarchs knew how to live.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I think having James Carroll review John Cornwell's biography of Pope John Paul II was not wise. It may be a fine book. But, as I commented in Cornwell's LiveOnline session yesterday, Carroll is too much of a partisan to have the critical distance required for a good review. I realize that picking reviewers is tough. As "experts" in a book's subject matter, they are frequently biased and run the risk of falling into the trap of being either overly critical or overly forgiving. As editor shouldn't you try to pick reviewers who are smart and well read in a subject, but have no particular axe to grind? In this case, perhaps a better reviewer would have been a biographer of other religious figures or world leaders who does not need to draw attention to his own views on the subject matter.

Michael Dirda: Good points. But as I no longer work at Book World as an editor, I wasn't present when the reviewer was chosen. It is tricky to assign any book dealing with religion or the Middle East.

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Takoma Park, Md.: For science, don't forget Stephen Pinker's books on mind and language. All except Words and Rules which is too specialized unless you're REALLY interested in linguistics.

And avoid all those "Bandaids: the sticky thing that saved civilization and is associated with everything you can think of and some you can't" type books.

Michael Dirda: thanks

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McLean, Va.: I heard your roundtable on Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons" was taped for C-SPAN, but I didn't see it listed on the channel's Web site thereafter. Has it aired since?

Michael Dirda: It aired on Sunday, but I didn't watch it myself. I can't bear the thought of seeing myself on television.

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Lexington, Ky.: Michael, I know you're not a big fan of Library of America, but they do carry something of an imprimatur for American writers. How do you feel about H. P. Lovecraft being added to the list (out this month)? Chandler, Hammett and others in the Noir Volumes lifted genre writers to that official list. SFF can't be far behind. Who would you recommend for the first SFF writer?

Michael Dirda: I think the writers you mention belong in the Library of American--it's just the books themesleves, their uniform format, that bothers me.
I suppose that the best approach to American science fiction would be an omnibus volume, like that two volume LOA on the noir writers. Who would be in it? I'm assuming only novels, since the Science Fiction Writers Hall of Fame volumes cover the novellas and short stories: Besters, The Stars My Destination, Sturgeon's More than Human, Dick's Man in the High Castle, Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness, Zelazny's Lord of LIght, Vance's The Dying Earth, several more. Of course, so much good sf is in shorter forms, e.g. the stories of James Tipree Jr, Cordwainer Smith, Avram Davidson.

And that's it, folks, for this week. I'm sorry if I didn't get to your question, but please try again next Wednesday at 2. Until then, keep reading!

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