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.

_____________

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! Washington has been suffering from temperamental weather. On Monday it appeared that spring was here; on Tuesday, it snowed, the wind picked up, and conditions grew arctic. Here at McDaniel, where I've been teaching, we enjoyed hearing poet Ann Townsend, author of The Coronary Garden, deliver the Bothe Lecture (ie. poetry reading). Today, the sun is shining, but it's more than a little brisk out. I've got multiple assignments right now, starting with a piece for Book World. But I feel groggy, not having slept well. Oh, I guess everything will work out somehow.
In the meanwhile, for the next hour we can escape into the world of books, or at least into talking about the world of books.
And so, without further ado, on with the program. (Did I just say, "without further ado"? I am losing it already.)

_______________________

Dallas, Tex.: Hello Michael,

I enjoyed reading your observations on Richard Wilber, Donald Justice and Anthony Hecht. I wonder in your reviews for poetry, does meter play a large part in how you rate a poem -- I mean the work of scanning each line, dividing each foot -- or do you value word choice more and what visions a poet might summon? How important is scanning if one wants to talk seriously about poetry? Many thanks.

Michael Dirda: The three poets you mention--all favorites of mine--are modern masters of formal verse. My taste in poetry does lie this way, but I can't say that I scan each line and test for meter. I just listen to the sound, feel the rhythm, enjoy the diction. I like wit and cleverness, word choices that surprise and observations that seem true. I have, from time to time, tried to learn more about prosody, but as I'm not a poet myself haven't really gone into its study in any depth. I have old books by Saintsbury, an anthology by Harvey Gross, that sort of thing.
But ultimately it is powerful language that I like. For me too much contemporary poetry feels imprecise, fuzzy, or somehow just plain dull. My favorite poets are Marlowe, Donne, Herbert, Pope, Wordsworth, Byron, Baudelaire, Yeats, Eliot, Cavafy and Stevens.

_______________________

Chamblee, Ga.: Last week a reference you made to Madame de Lafayette prompted someone to ask for more about Madame des Cleves. I read French, and was amazed to see in what a clipped pace de Lafayette wrote. Remarkable prose, giving me almost as much pleasure as Flaubert at first exposure, though not wearing as well. You yourself apparently liked the novel, one of the earliest of all, very much....

Michael Dirda: La princesse de Cleves is generally regarded as the first true French novel (we're excluding the gaudy carnival of, say, Rabelais). I do like the novel a great deal, and mentioned it because my course "Love's Mysteries" is covering great works of western literature and art that deal with everyone's favorie emotion. Unlike most novels, Cleves shows us the heroine resisting the allure of adultery and ronouncing the man she loves. What's interesting is talking about just why she refuses him, even when she's left a widow and free to marry.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Did you attend the Washington Antiquarian Book Fair? If so, find anything?

Michael Dirda: Nope. I never got there. You have to bear in mind that the Fair, wonderful though it is, has now become what Catholics refer to as "an occasion for sin." I figure: If I don't see those expensive books that I absolutely must have, then I don't have to buy them.

_______________________

Annapolis, Md.: My son, who shares my love for reading good writing, gave me as my birthday gift two books (in one volume) by Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Manor and The Estate. Have you read these books? I previously read--and enjoyed--two other works by Singer: The Slave and Enemies, A Love Story. What is your opinion of Singer's novels?

Michael Dirda: I haven't read those novels, and indeed know Singer principally as a short-story writer. I'm very fond of "The Spinoza of Market Street" and the wonderful tales, most for children, about the village of Chelm, where everyone is at best a simpleton.
I did once hear Singer read and found his thick accent quite exhilarating to listen to.

_______________________

Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: I saw NYTBR's Sam Tenenhaus on C-SPAN2 say they used seven fulltime "previewers" each who read 20-25 books a week (in galley form). The previewers were given the candidates for selection following an initial weeding out by Tenenhaus and his two assistants. (Tenenhaus said the previewers had such a wide knowledge of contemporary literature that it was intimidating to be in meetings with them.) The recommendations by the previewers were then presumably acted on by a final selection committtee, and review assignments made. How similar is the process at Book World? Thanks much.

Michael Dirda: Not at all. The Book World editors, at a Monday meeting, talk about books for possible coverage and then discuss who might review them. Those two hours can be very lively. Not to speak ill of the Times Book Review, I can't say that it does significantly better in its choice of books and reviewer than the Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times. More personally, this kind of hierarchical stuff rubs me wrong. I believe in choosing good people to be editors and then allowing them to follow their taste and inclination. Had I worked at the Times Book Review rather than the Post Book World I would never have been able to write about the range of books that you'll see reflected in Bound to Please.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Michael,

I caught a notice in the free give-away paper that the Post hands out each morning for your recent appearance at a local bookstore. I thought it was pretty oddly expressed, to say the least. The notice calls your "Bound to Please" a "compendium of writings on great books," and goes on to say, "No, not the Great Boring Books professors of English are always going on about, but wonderful, underappreciated works of literature, etc, etc." What a biblioclast way to introduce a bibliophile! One doesn't know whether to laugh or scream at such philistinism.

Michael Dirda: I didn't see this write-up, so can't really judge it. I don't think professors choose boring books to teach, but I do know that I try to make even rather daunting books sound interesting--because they are interesting, and far more, if one gives them a chance.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: I greatly enjoyed your "An Open Book" but I am ignoring the reading lists in the back, having compiled one to my own tastes as I went along. It consists of a Ginger Man and a Demolished Man. The former is a Barefoot Boy with Cheek, interested in Loving, Living, and Party-Going while the latter wears a Poison Belt, seeks the Seven Types of Ambiguity and
an Unquiet Grave.

I, too, used to cherry pick between my school library (Alfred Hitchcock 3 Investigators) and my town library (Col. Trevor Dupuy's WWII series).

Since you were an accordianist, can you recommend an accordian CD?

You can tell your fact checker that the Jack Lemmon movie was "The Wackiest Ship in the Army", even though the movie was 99 and 44/100 percent Navy.

You should've bought the thumb!

Michael Dirda: Nice wordplay. Of course, Gully Foyle doeosn't seek anmbiguity at all--he seeks revenge but finds ambiguity.
Accordion CD--gee, I don't know. You should probably look for the great mastes of the instrument--Frankie Yankovic (and his Yanks) and Myron Floren. You can also buy French torch songs--Piaf, some Brassens et al--and enjoy the accordion accompaniment. Of course, nowadays we have zydeco and all kind blues/jazz/pop accordion playing.
Truth be known, it's been a long time since I picked up my old Lira.
Yes, I should have bought the gypsy's thumb. I often wonder about how my life might be different if I had.

_______________________

Oakton, Va.: Just finished the Malayan trilogy and the Enderby trilogy (not including "Enderby's Dark Lady" as part of that series) by Anthony Burgess. I had previously read his "Clockwork Orange." I mus say I like his writing quite a bit, although there are deficiencies to be sure. What are your thoughts on Burgess, as either a novelist or essayist?

Michael Dirda: As an essayist: Always fun to read--I especially like his unrelable book on Shakespeare, the reviews in Homage to Qwerty UIop and in Urgent Copy, and his two Joyce books, especially Re: Joyce. Of the novels I like Enderby, Nothing LIke the Sun and A Death in Deptford. I have mixed feelings about a lot of the fiction, some of which is draadful--The End of the News World, for instance. But Burgess's rumbustious autobiography is quite irresistible: Little Wilson and Big God, and You've Had Your Time.

_______________________

Fairfax, Va.: I absolutely loved reading The Scarlet Pimpernell when I was in about 10th grade, and still enjoy picking it up today. What a great book! While I was still in high school, my dad took me to see a play version (very well-done) since I enjoyed it so much! Any other suggestions along that line?

Michael Dirda: You might try some of the classic "boys" adventure novels-- Kidnapped, The Prisoner of Zenda, Rogue Male, The Thirty-Nine Steps.
If you like all the sword play, you might consider John Dickson Carr's historical thriller The Devil in Velvet, or some of Georgette Heyer's more adventurous stories set in the Regency. Rafael Sabatini is the great name, though: Captain Blood, for example. Oh, and don't overlook Samuel Shellabarger's Prince of Fozes and Captain from Castile. You might also try an even older classic like The Count of Monte Cristo.
Baroness Orczy wrote all kinds of stuff, including the very good mysteries featuring The Old Man in the Corner. So you might look for her other books.

_______________________

Takoma Park, Md.: Remember that the audience of the Free Post Thingy are supposed to be young and only reluctantly literate.

Going along with the editors assumption that the audience is snarky and not all that interested in books, you can see why they came up with that notice.

If it attracts a few of them, why not? We and they all know the joke.

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

_______________________

Silver spring, Md.: Actual bumper sticker:

Play the accordion, go to jail. It's the law.

Michael Dirda: Cool. My favorite bumper sticker of all time is "Rugby Players Eat Their Dead."

_______________________

Law School, Washington, D.C.: Michael,
Having been in law school for a number of months now, I'm beginning to burn out, and I dread going to class each day. Do you have any ideas about books that would make me care about what I'm studying again? Since I'm now tens of thousands of dollars in debt doing something else isn't really an option.
I'm not really the Grisham type, I prefer Melville, Faulkner, and Pasternak most of the time.
Please help me enjoy law again!

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Here is a moral dilemma. Some people would say that anything that discourages the making of more lawyers would be a service to the world. Perhaps what you need is to revisualize what you might do with the law, and find some aspect of it that really matters to you. Helping the poor? Changing society? Attacking entrenched prejudice? Maybe you could volunteer at a legal services clinic, and see people in need of good representation.
If you're in law school, though, because you want to make money or because your family forced this on you, and you really hate it, you should a) just bite the bullet and persevere, or b)quit and fins something you love.
As for books--you might read lawyer mysteries for relaxation (Perry Mason is only the start--there are lots), or study the life of a favorite hero, whether it's Clarence Darrow or Louis Nizer or Oliver Wendell Holmes.

_______________________

Cleveland Park, Md.: Formal poetry:

In my personal opinion, there are many many adherents of formal poetry in these latter days who use forms to say banal things in a relatively banal way. Following form makes those banal things more challenging and ineresting to read, but it only goes so far.

Imperfect analogy: I'd still rather look at Monet's flowers than the most perfectly photorealistic decoupage of flowers.

Michael Dirda: You have no argument with me. But it's easier to make a bad poem when you can say anything in any way, than it is when you have to observe a rhyme scheme and the structure of a villanelle or sestina.

_______________________

How times change: In the 1950s, experts like Dr Wertham said comics were bad because they are read by juvenile delinquents. Now, if any juveniles (delinquents or not) are discovered to actually spend time reading anything, they'd be considered the shining hope of America

Michael Dirda: Actually Wertham thought the comics put criminal and anti-social ideas into the minds of young people--"Seduction of the Innocent" as he had it.
Of course, most comics are now geared to very adult sensibilities.

_______________________

Rosslyn, Arlington, Va.: I'm reading the Dumas Club and the characters' obsession with collecting old (antiquarian?) books made me wonder... when did you start collecting old books and what motivated you to begin doing so?

Michael Dirda: You could read my memoir An Open Book for the long answer to this. Bu the short one is: I collected books, of all sorts, because I wanted to read them. When I came to Washington I worked briefly in a modern first-edition bookshop--Quill and Brush--and learned about values, the importance of condition, etc. etc. So I bought more wisely afterwards. But i still only acquire books I actually intend to read.
And I don't have any really old books, hoting earlier than the mid 19th century.

_______________________

Munich, Germany: I've got an family heirloom book, inscribed by my future Godmother (I wasn't yet born) to my future mother, called "Island in the Sun", by Alec Waugh. It's more or less a crime story in the style of Patricia Highsmith or Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment", where the reader knows who committed the murder and is allowed to see the tortured thoughts and fears of the culprit along the way. In "Island in the Sun", the police officer even lends the culprit a copy of "Crime and Punishment", in order to further exacerbate his guilt, and coax him into confessing his crime. All in all, I'd have to say that "Crime and Punishment" is quite an influential book.

My question is regarding the translated title of the book. A German acquaintance (and descendant of a Russian Officer) once told me that German translations of Russian literature are much more accurate than English translations, because the Germans were culturally closer to the Russians than the British. For instance, the German title of "Crime and Punishment", "Schuld und Sühne", translates to Guilt and Atonement. However, "Crime et Châtiment", the French title, translates to Crime and Punishment.

Seeing as French was the international language during the times of Dostoevsky, the French title, and hence the English title, would probably be the more accurate than the German. Would you agree on this?

Michael Dirda: Actually, the German does seem to reflect the Russian title more accurately, if I'm not mistaken. This may, of course, just be happenstance.
I think good translations can be made into any language, but the French do often put in the effort at supporting scholarship. Even American Faulknerians consult the notes and commentary in the Pleiade edition of Faulkner. The Borges volume in that series also had important material not otherwise available outside Spanish--but it is currently unavailable because the Borges estate has somehow stopped its production while some newer edition is prepared.

_______________________

Elkinburg, Md.: Hi Mr Dirda,

When people ask you what will be the legacy of this novel or that novelist you often say that few will be remembered in x amount of years just like this novel/novelist is not remembered today (who should be). Two questions:

I'm in that in-between period between books, the one where I want to read everything but can't decide on anything. So, given that I'm into big pomo novels, can you please recommend a book that you like that was considered eternal in its time that's forgotten now?

And second, when you're in that in-between mood, what do you do? Thanks

Michael Dirda: For a moment, my eyes read "I'm into big porno novels" and I was immediately goint to suggest The Pearl, but then looked again.
Can we have old post-modern novels?
But let's just say you want a novel highly regarded in its time that's now forgotten. Okay. There are any number of Victorian novels--e.g. The Cloister and the Hearth, Hugh Wynne--but let's pick a 20th-century book. Oh wait, you said that I like. Hmmm. That's oddly harder. I think most of the books I like are remembered by some people, whether they're comic classics like Augustus Carp or Rupert Hart-Davis's Hugh Walpole ( a biography), or the early thrillers of Eric Ambler.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: For the reluctant aspiring lawyer: if you don't like it, don't do it. But if you must, then read C.P. Snow's "Strangers and Brothers." The central character/narrator is a lawyer with a literary bent. A very interesting series of books, and one that might help you put law into a larger picture of society.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: Thanks for the CD suggestions. I'll look them up! Your book also inspired me to crack open Wallace Stevens. He has a poem called "The Reader":

All night I sat reading a book,
Sat reading as if in a book
Of sombre pages.

It was autumn and falling stars
Covered the shrivelled forms
Crouched in the moonlight.

No lamp was burning as I read,
A voice was mumbling, "Everything
Falls back to coldness,

Even the musky muscadines,
The melons, the vermilion pears
Of the leafless garden."

The sombre pages bore no print
Except the trace of burning stars
In the frosty heaven.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. I can't say this is one of Wally's greatest efforts, but it certainly reflects his dandyist and cmopaceted esthetic.

_______________________

Arlington, Va.: Reading plays -- whether Shakespeare or modern: Do you find you get enough out of them? I have a hard time reading play-style dialogue and stage directions and turning them into a picture in my mind. But regular prose, I can imagine the scene unfolding in front of me. Is this a case of a little knowledge is a dangerous thing?

Michael Dirda: Some plays read very well--Shakespeare, Congreve's Way of the World, Wilde's Earnest, Shaw. But I think others--Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Streetcare Named DEsire--really do need to be seen.

_______________________

Leesburg, Va.: I am teaching The Taming of the Shrew for the first time. My students traveled to a perfectly lovely theatre in Staunton, Virginia, modeled after Shakespeare's Blackfriar's Theatre, and saw an excellent production of the play. I have read some critical analyses, but as I read you every week and enjoy your opinions on so many tomes, I wanted your expert opinion. Is she tamed or not?

Michael Dirda: Only men are ever really tamed. No woman ever is.

_______________________

Washington, D.C.: Hello Michael -- I couldn't make it to your Politics & Prose event on Monday, but wonder how it went?

Michael Dirda: Big crowd, sold a bunch of books, people seemed to enjoy my rambling thoughts and anecdotes.

_______________________

Austin, Tex.: Lately I've begun to feel the urge to collect older editions of books that I've fallen in love with, but I'm intimidated by the terminology associated with collecting and want to make sure I'm not spending more than I should be (i.e., is it worth purchasing book-club editions, should I have a dustjacket repaired if it's damaged, etc.). Can you recommend a guide, either online or in print, that would serve as a kind of basic primer? Thank you!

Michael Dirda: Look for the books by Allen and Pat Ahearn about book collecting.

_______________________

Alexandria, Va.: You really should have gone to the book fair. Someone was giving away a copy of The Sound and the Fury for just $47,500.

Michael Dirda: What do I need two for?

_______________________

Law School: When I was in law school I loved to read Mortimer's Rumpole of the Bailey short stories. In law school, one only has time for short stories.

Michael Dirda: Yes. Of course, the Leo Kern TV series was, in its way, as good as the print originals.

_______________________

Chamblee, Ga.: I recently came across some novels considered canonical that I really didn't know about at all. Any word on: Petersburg, Berlin Alexanderplatz, the Cities of Salt quintet, Oblomov, The Betrothed (Manzoni's)?

Michael Dirda: The books of Biely, Doblin, Don't know the Cities of Salt Quintet, Goncharov and Manzoni are all classics of their respective literature. I'd start with Oblomov whose hero doesn't want to get out of bed.

_______________________

Ashcroft, B.C.: I saw the question too late last week to answer, but the book in which a boy in post-War England is shunted around between various relatives, and befriends someone called 'The-Man-Behind-The-Glass', is Graham Joyce's THE FACTS OF LIFE: A NOVEL.

Just read Alberto Manguel's READING DIARY, in which he reflected on how little known Argentinian writer Adolfo Bioy Casares is in the English-speaking world, adding 'The ignorance of the English-speaking reader never ceases to amaze me.' Are English-speaking readers any more ignorant of writers outside their own culture than people in other countries? I assume that most people read fiction that speaks to them in some way, which generally would mean fiction from their own language or country, and English-speaking readers are fortunate in having so much material to read. I'm not advocating ignoring books from other countries, but I can see how readers in Canada, America, and England might well feel they had more than enough books written originally in their native tongue to be going on with (that said, I'm glad to see that Zafon's SHADOW OF THE WIND is selling well in England and North America).

Michael Dirda: Many thanks for the answer and the shrewd comment.

_______________________

New York Times Best Seller: How is it possible that "DaVinci" still stays atop the New York Times list after more than two years? Are there still thousands of people every day suddenly realizing they haven't read the hot book of 2003 and rushing out to buy it? Sounds fishy to me.

Michael Dirda: All part of an international conspiracy organized by the Rosicrucians or possibly the Illuminati.

_______________________

Columbus, Ohio: Graduate studies in history have left me without any time for fiction for too long now. Can you recommend a fantasy series that will neither tax my already overtaxed reading comprehension abilities nor insult my intelligence? I really don't know where to begin, since I haven't looked in so long!

Michael Dirda: Terry Pratchett's Discworld. Start with Mort.

_______________________

Rockville, Md.: I'm a big fan of David Sedaris. However, I was disappointed, although still found many laughs, in his latest book "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim". Do you think David's humor may be suffering from his enormous success compared to the days when he was cleaning apartments in Manhattan?

Michael Dirda: I've never been a big fan of his humor--but then I've hardly read any of it.

_______________________

Syracuse, N.Y.: Mr. Dirda,

Your bio says that you recently dabbled in teaching at the college level; What do you think of the noble pedantic profession of teaching, and how (if in any way) have your experiences with faculty and students affected your writing and outlook?

Michael Dirda: I admire teachers a great deal. In a just world elementary public school teachers would be the highest paid people in our society, and be driven to their jobs in limousines.
That they are not is because the rich send their kids to private school.
I enjoy being on a campus, having access to a good library, with interesting colleagues, lively young people, etc etc. I don't think my teaching has affected my writing--at least not yet.

_______________________

McLean, Va.: I saw your essay on Lovecraft in The Weekly Standard. This week, the Standard has revealed that it's Literary editor, Joseph Bottum, has left to become editor of "First Things." Did you work with Bottum, or with his successor, whose name escapes me at the moment?

The main reason I ask: I'm wondering if we might see your prose again in the Standard, which is my favorite magazine. I never thought a Bush critic such as yourself would grace its pages, but I'm glad I was wrong.

Michael Dirda: Bottum asked me to write about Lovecraft, as he had asked me a year ago to write about Dunsany, and before that about my favorite comic novel Augustus Carp.
The new editor has extended an invitation to me to think about possible pieces for the Weekly Standard, and so I may very well appear there again.
I disagree with the politics of the magazine, as I do with mucn in the New Criterion and The Spectator (of England), but the writing, criticism and reviews in these periodicals are first-rate and I turn to them with the greatest pleasure and admiration.


And that's it, folks, for this week. ANd so until next Wednesday at 2--keep reading!

_______________________