Dirda on Books

Prize-winning columnist 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. Heparticularly 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 themost 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.

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Michael Dirda: Welcome to DOB! It's a gray, windy day here in DC, but warm--the trees are in what's called their autumn splendor, though that also means a lot of raking is going on around the neighborhood. I'm a little late in getting on line today because a new mail carrier delivered my neighbor's mail to me--where mine has gone is anybody's guess. Of course, I only look for the all too rare checks and cast aside all the bills for a longsuffering spouse to deal with (the paying of household bills being but one of the ways she has suffered). Ah, the blithe and feckless life of the man of letters! Our souls, after all, are in the empyrean, far above these tawdry earthly matters. Etc etc.

Anyway, let's look at this weeks notes and queries.

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Chicago, Ill.: Hi Mr. Dirda,

Have you ever tried your hand at film criticism? And also, do you agree that cinema had usurped the role of literature, as the dominant and the most important mode of artistic expression in recent times?

Michael Dirda: Ah, movie reviewing! In my hot youth, I once thought about becoming a film critic. I attended independent film festivals, compared notes with my graduate school friend Terry Rafferty (who became the film critic for the New Yorker for a couple of years), tried to see every possible film ever made, read Agee and Kael and Simon and Kaufmann and lots of stuff about cinema by French intellectuals.

And then, one day, in the early to mid 1970s I decided that movies were essentially not as interesting as books. I liked words and sentences more than images and spectacle. I also preferred the idea of one man (or woman)/one work of art. The collective aspect of film-making didn't appeal to me (I was never that interested in theater either). Anyway, over the last 30 years I don't suppose I've seen more than a couple of dozen movies, and that probably includes the kiddie films I took my children to. I've occasionally tried to watch them on tape or DVD, and find that anything other than the truly classic (which usually means older film) are rather boring to me. Every movie seems too long.

Of course, I did once contemplate applying for the Post movie critic job simply because I would bring freshness of perspective--I think it would be rather exhilarating to read film criticism by someone who didn't really like film all that much.

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Amsden, Ohio: I can't imagine reading as many books as you have read and to be able to remember what I read. Is there any secret to reading this much other than just being smart?

Michael Dirda: Well, setting aside the issue of whether I'm smart or not, the only secret is desire. If you want to read a lot, you will. AS I've said before, it takes me a long time to read a book, hours and hours and hours. I'm no speed reader. But reading has been--along with a few people, a taste for travel, red wine, and listening to music--the principal focus of my life. The only thing I like better is writing.

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Nags Head, NC: What do you think of the series retelling ancient myths with female voices? The two I am aware of are Atwood doing the voice of Penelope and Winterson doing Atlas (although I am not sure where the female voice applies). I have regarded Winterson as a first class stylist but thought her recent works lacked structure. Thus, I am intrigued to see if this device works for her craft and for the myth.

Michael Dirda: I like Winterson a lot, and Atwood I admire without quite feeling a real passion for her work. Personally, I think this series sounds a little hokey. Women writers have been retelling myths for some time now--think of Angela Carter or Tanith Lee or Anne Carson. What bothers me isn't the doing of it but the series idea. A marketing ploy, pure and simple. Still, these are good and serious authors and they will produce work worth reading. No doubt Marina Warner will be up next.

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Alexandria, Va.: Mr. Dirda,

I read recently that the young Stephen Vincent Benet was considered by his peers--Fitzgerald, Dos Passos, Thornton Wilder--as the literary man "most likely to succeed." Besides "Devil and Daniel Webster" and "John Brown's Body" are any of his works still worth checking out?

Michael Dirda: Benet is quite a wonderful short-story writer, and "13 O'Clock" is worth looking for in used bookshops. It contains, among other gems, "The Curfew Tolls," an alternate history tale in which the narrator meets a Corsican who feels he might have done great things had history been just a little different; the punch line comes when the narrator visits the man's grave and reads "Napoleion Buonarparte." There's also a wonderful retelling of "The King of the Cats" as well as the two Daniel Webster stories. But the greatest triumph in the book is arguably the finest post-nuclear holocaust story ever written (and written in the 1930s, I would guess): "By the Rivers of Babylon." Oh, it's so good.

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Chapel Hill, NC: What's the word on the Marlon Brando co-authored "Fan-Tan?" Sounds like a hoot, but could be a tedious bore. Opinions...

Michael Dirda: Anyone know? I don't.

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Washington, DC: Hi Michael--I love your chats! I'm in a book club. It's a weird little group and we've read lots of interesting books, classics, poems, current fiction. Right now we're reading Philippa Gregory's The Other Boelyn Girl. I think everyone is enjoying this book, but I'm really torn about historical fiction. I like her writing, but I can't help think what Gregory would write about me if she only had the barest of knowledge of my life. Any thoughts on this style of writing?

Michael Dirda: Historical fiction has always elicited uneasy feelings. Purists want to know what is fiction, what is real. On the other hand, writers from Scott and Dumas to O'Brian, Dunnett and Fraser make the past come alive and are exceptionally scrupulous in their research. What's more, most fiction tends to be historical in some way--it's nearly all set in the past, whether recent or not. I mean a Louis L'Amour western is a historical novel, and so is War and Peace.

Personally, I think you should read the writers who appeal to you, regardless of the genres they work in. If you're in a book club, though, it would be fun to bring up some of the issues raised by historical fiction. There's a great, albeit Marxist take on the genre, in Georg Lukacs's masterwork The Historical Novel.

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Ashcroft, B.C. (BR): I'm turning over the concept of a film critic who doesn't really like films; yes, the different perspective might be interesting, but I don't think I'd like a film critic who disliked films any more than I would a book critic who disliked books. Just as the best spoofs and parodies are written by people who thoroughly know and love what they're sending up, so I think the best criticism comes from people who love (or at least like) what they're commenting on.

Also, I see that Anne Rice's new book is getting reviewed hither, thither, and yon, while Jonathan Carroll's latest has hardly garnered any attention anywhere. I know which author I'd find more interesting and would sooner read, and which one has probably written a better book (hint: he's not the one with the initials A.R.); but then I suppose Rice is just too tempting a target, coming as she does with a built-in reader awareness that Carroll, alas, sadly lacks. The pasting her book is getting adds to the suspicion that she's getting the coverage because a lot of people like to see someone famous taken down a peg or two.

Michael Dirda: Well, I can hardly disagree with you really. But I've always thought The Post should have one Sunday a year when the food critic reviews ballet, and the dance critic reviews television and the book critic does horse racing etc etc. Wasn't it G.K. Chesterton who said that the formula for success as a journalist was simple: To send your article for the Church Times to the National Enquirer and your article for the National Enquirer to the Church Times.

Well, Rice is a celebrity, which is why she's reviewed--it has nothing to do with her books at this point. Carroll is a good writer, an elegant literary fantasist, and I too would read him (having reviewed his books in the past). And yet Carroll had grown a little repetitive in his themes, no? His heroes always wore Versace, used Mont Blancs, knew about the right restaurants outside Vienna. I once described his books as Weird Tales meets Vanity Fair.

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Unique Books: My very-well-read brother has charged me with buying for him for Christmas a novel that could not possibly be made into a movie. Any ideas? Bonus points if it's in French -- he should practice more. Thank you.

Michael Dirda: Gosh, any novel could be made into a movie, I suppose. But try Beckett's How It Is--a short novel, written in bursts rather than in sentences, about a character who crawls through mud in darkness and meets one other character also in the mud. And that's about it. But it's wonderful.

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Minnetonka, Minn.: Michael, In a previous discussion you mentioned P.G. Wodehouse disease. What is P.G. Wodehouse disease?

Michael Dirda: Did I? I don't remember the context, but it could have been that I'm always going on about P.G. Wodehouse and the wonders of his similes. I wish I could recall when I used the phrase. So much for my vaunted memory.

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Munich, Germany: I was just wondering how and where you do your reading?

Do you read at a desk so that you can comfortably jot down notes or is a large worn out easy chair more conducive to cranial stimulation? Is reading in bed encouraged or even permitted in the Dirda household?

Michael Dirda: I read all over the house, moving from armchair to dining room table to bed to bathtub to desk and back again. In truth, I've never found a good place to read. My favorites in the past have been cafes and restaurants late at night (I wrote my dissertation in a McDonalds), laundromats, and the subway. THe last was probably the best, but it too is now a lost paradise. Cell phones have much to answer for.

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Alexandria, Va.: If you like historical fiction, or are wary of it, I highly recommend the works of Sharon Kay Penman. The soap opera-ness of Phillipa Gregory is not as strong and at the end of the book, she lays out in detail where she got her facts, which events she changed, which characters are her own and how she developed her working presumptions of characters. On of her best is While Christ and his Saints were Sleeping.

Michael Dirda: THanks.

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Ashcroft, B.C. (BR): The word on FAN-TAN is avoid: poorly written, poorly-plotted, and embarrassing rubbish which would almost certainly never have been published had Brando's name not been associated with it.

Michael Dirda: Sounds about what I'd expect.

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Buffalo, NY: Dear Mr. Dirda,

I regularly visit DOB, and have been rewarded with plenty of great suggestions, from you and your chatters, that have lead me to books I would not otherwise have found (including Bound to Please, which I've found particularly useful.) For that, many thanks.

My question today is prompted by your reference to film critic Terrence Rafferty. I enjoyed his New Yorker reviews, and read them regularly. I see that he now writes for the NY Times on occasion, but does he have a fixed address these days where we can look for his current reviews? I must have been out of the loop at the time, but I have never heard why he ended his relationship with the New Yorker. I hope that was not an unhappy situation for him; I for one have missed his contribution to the magazine.

This isn't a book question, so thanks very much for taking it if you do.

Michael Dirda: Terry went on to have a regular culture column for, I think, GQ or possibly Esquire. That lasted quite a few years, but he doesn't work there now. I haven't spoken to him in a long time and don't know whether he left the New Yorker or GQ under unhappy circumstances. I would guess that the New Yorker probably wanted to try a new voice on movies.

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Cheltenham, Md.: Hi Michael,

I see you're a Diana Krall fan. I have The Look of Love and her new Christmas CD, which other CD would be your favorite?

Michael Dirda: I don't have the new Christmas CD, and in truth haven't listened to Krall for a while now. NOt that I don't still revere her versions of the classics. But I've added Eva Cassidy, Stacy Kent, and others to my roster of favorite female vocalists. My favorite standard is "The Way You Look Tonight" sung by Margaret Whiting, followed by Krall doing "Let's Face the Music and Dance."

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Alabama: Are Mencken's memoirs worth seeking out? I've been re-reading selections from "Happy Days" and "Newspaper Days" in my old Mencken reader (the one edited by Alistair Cooke) and wondered how available they are.

Michael Dirda: THey're pretty easy to find in used bookstores, and are probably in print in paperback. They're wonderful especially Happy Days. But you should know this from the selections in the Vintage MEncken.

By the way, there's a fat new biography of HLM, which is out and supposed to be very good.

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Lansdale, Pa.: Hi Michael,Since the topic of film came up, I have to admit that, after a period of seeing less than 5 films a year (theatrical or home video), I have become a total DVD junkie in the past few months. The availability of relatively inexpensive (at least when calculated per film) Hitchcock sets set me off and I have moved on to film noir and (nostalgically) monster/flying saucer films of the 50s (including the Harryhausen films you mentioned in your Borges review). Perhaps my long stint of reading critically has affected my viewing habits: I do find myself very aware of the language of film: which scenes are shot in long single takes, how editing is used to show point-of-view, how foregrounding an object signifies its importance. I seem to prefer films where style carries a lot of weight, much as you've noted your preference for stylists in literature.

Michael Dirda: Yes to all you say. I do enjoy kitschy films from childhood--e.g. them or Earth vs. the Flying Saucers. And I once would have named film noir and screwball comedy my favorite genres--but aren't they everyone's?

Truth be told, I love movies as much as books and don't dare start watching them seriously again. You are talking to a man who starts to weep when Shirley Temple is off being sold to the gypsies on Christmas eve while the Grandfather is shouting plaintively, desperately through the streets, "Heidi, Heidi."

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Canongate Myth Series is NOT for female writers only!: The series is not intended as female writers retelling myths. The full group of writers includes men and women, and many are not retellings but books on the general topic of myths.

That said, the Atwood book is a hoot. Haven't read the Winterson yet.

Look at the full planned series and the publisher's statements as to the intentions, please.

Michael Dirda: Hmm. Okay. But do I detect the voice of the schoolmistress? I can almost hear "tsk, tsk" in that last sentence.

But you are fundamentally right: I've not studied the prospectus for the series and CAnongate is an interesting house--based in Edinburgh, no? AT least I have a big collection of Burns from CAnongate. CAn't get more Scots than that.

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Minnetonka, Minn.: For Unique Books, Carlos Ruiz Zafon (former screen writer) absolutely states that Shadow of the Wind will never be made into a movie. Shadow of the wind is one of my favorite books.

Michael Dirda: Hmm. I wonder why. Shadow of the Wind is quite a wonderful novel, very bookish, but clearly a good candidate for a swashbuckling and heartbreaking film.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Mr. Dirda: I enjoyed your recent piece on Feynman. Sometime back I took Carl Sagan's suggestion and listened to "at least Volume I" of Feynman's "Lectures on Physics." Even without much calculus, one can easily benefit, and also be exposed to the man's rare humor and scintillating personality. By the way, in addition to the play "QED," the 1996 film "Infinity" does a nice job of showing the star-crossed tubercular romance of Feynman (Matthew Broderick) and Arlene Greenbaum (played by one of the sexy Arquette sisters). Broderick (his mother wrote the screenplay) also directed.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks. As I said in the review, this omnibus does come with a CD of Feynman talking about those days at Los Alamos.

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Alexandria, Va.: I noticed a biography of Melville by Delblanco(?). Is it worth it as a present to a reader whose a big fan of Moby Dick and Bartelby ?

Michael Dirda: Ah, you missed my review. Good thing these postings are anonymous. It's a terrific biography, very well written, and will send anyone with a casual interest in Melville back to the books.

Now, if you want a really special gift for your Melville friend, seek out the old two volume Melville Log, by Jay Leyda. It lists, nothing much more than that, everything we know about Melville--what he was doing, wearing, whatever on every day for which we have a written record.

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Annapolis, Md.: Michael, I know that you are no longer part of the Book World staff, but I thought you might be able to shed some light on how books are selected to be reviewed. In particular, I am curious as to why it took so long to review the winner of the Man Booker prize, John Banville's "The Sea," while other books on the Booker prize short list were reviewed many weeks ago, including your review of Zadie Smith's "On Beauty."

Michael Dirda: The short answer is I don't know. The longer one might be that the Banville wasn't published in this country till recently. For instance, I'll be reviewing Arthur and George by Barnes, also short-listed, in January, since that's when it's appearing in the U.S.

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Not in Kansas: Oh, self-loathing. I raced out (ahead of the curve; I didn't know it would go best-seller) and read Truman's 'In Cold Blood' since I skipped it back then. What is it with human nature (Bonnie & Clyde, Godfather) that causes us to root for these guys to get away (with murder)?. A strange thing. I was beside myself but in finishing the book the next day, I recovered to agree w/their death penalty, though I'm no fan of capital punishment and their trial was prejudiced. It was a vicious, brutal killing, much bigger back in the day than now times. Unsettling story, but well told. thanks.

Michael Dirda: Glad you enjoyed--enjoyed?--the book. It is a kind of masterpiece.

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Kenner: Mr. Dirda,

I was reading through an essay by Guy Davenport on Hugh Kenner. I am intrigued by a statement Davenport makes concerning Kenner's writing, "In later books he took to hiding perfectly invisible poems inside the prose: a Yeatsian sonnet, a limerick, a lively lyric in the book about Bugs Bunny and the Roadrunner." I just loaded up on Hugh Kenner's books from the library, but I am wondering if you know what Davenport is talking about? hidden poems? I suppose I'll find out if I can unearth them. Thanks!

Michael Dirda: He means that some of the sentences that look like ordinary prose can actually be reset as poetry. Lots of writers do this sort of thing, and it's common in French to find that a novel has sentences that scan as perfect alexandrines. In my own youth, I used to encode my reviews with messages, some being fairly obvious, others requiring knowlege of the code I was using.

It's not really consequential at all. Kenner is fun to read because he knows so much. Same with Davenport.

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Burke, Va.: Hi Michael - I recently read Paul Auster's Book of Illusions and was left underwhelmed. I wasn't really surprised by anything that happened and didn't really care about any of the characters. Did you read it? If so, am I missing something? Should I try any of his other novels? Thanks!

Michael Dirda: I reviewed that book, if I"m not mistaken. AT any event, I reviewed an Auster novel about two years ago, and felt the writing was as ingratiating as ever but that the book itself read like self-parody--and not simply because the hero's name was an anagram of Auster's.

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Herndon, Va: I'm embarking upon Burton's "Anatomy of Melancholy" for the first time. Any advice for a novice?

Michael Dirda: Don't let it get you down.

Actually, it's very funny and every sentence is a little meal in itself. Take it slowly. I suggest a few pages at bedtime.

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Baltimore, Md.: Thanks very much for your appreciative review of Mr. G. Mac Fraser's latest achievement as editor of the papers of Sir Harry Flashman. I was wondering if you have read his history of violence on the Scottish/English border, The Steel Bonnets, and, if so, what you thought of it.

Also, there was a marvelous line in an NY Times piece on Fraser last week. Actually, it was a quote from the Daily Telegraph in which the writer, in describing Fraser's High Tory conservatism, said of him, "He's not from the Old School. He's from the school they knocked down to build the Old School." Fabulous!

Michael Dirda: Yes, that's a terrific line. Fraser is very conservative on some matters.

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Mount Desert Island: Dear Michael.

For the person who was looking for wine history, here's what I would recommend. Karen MacNeil's Wine Bible is a wonderful introduction to world of wine and discusses the particular wines of many countries.

For real histories there are Hugh Johnson's Vintage: The Story of Wine; Edward Hyam's Dionysus: A Social History of Wine; H. Warner Allen's A History of Wine; William Younger's Gods, Men, and Wine; and closer to home - Thomas Pinney's 2 Volume A History of Wine in America.

On another subject, both Trafalgar and Interlink Publishing distibute British books in the US.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Maitland, Fla: I finished The Road to Xanadu by John Lowes and I have rarely enjoyed a book as much! "Scholarship ain't in it!" as Jack Aubrey might have said to mean the opposite.

Are you aware of any other books like this? I can't imagine there are many and I can't imagine there are any that are better, but it there are I WANT THEM.

I still can't get over the influence of William Bartram's journal on Coleridge and that the springs here in Florida found there way into one of the great poems of the language. How neat is that?! And I'll bet there is not more than one (I'm being generous here) secondary school English teacher in Central Florida (or the state for that matter) that knows of that influence and connection to this state....

And I owe it all to this forum. That's worth the price of admission by itself.

Michael Dirda: Hey, I'm a fount of rare knowledge! In truth, there are books somewhat similar to Lowes's old classic and you'll find some of them mentioned in an essay called "Romantic Scholarship" in my collection Readings. Happy reading!

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Annapolis, Md.: I'm very much looking forward to your introduction (or is it a preface? No matter) to Kirkegaard. Unfortunately, I remember neither the title of the book nor the publisher. Can you remind me of both -- plus the release date (hope I'm not being too demanding) so I can keep an eye out for it? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Don't know the precise date, but sometime in the spring Continuum will publish a paperback of Kierkegaard's Diary of a Seducer, with my introduction. I wouldn't bother to keep a keen eye out for it. I"m sure to mention it as soon as it's out. In March Penguin will bring out The Manticore, with an intro by me. But hey, you can talk to me every week or read me in Book World, or buy my books and look forward to rereading me every year and then puchase extra copies for your children and friends and. . .

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National City, Calif: It seems as if science writing is becoming the new travel

writing. The first time I became aware of it was with the

work of Oliver Sachs. Do you have any favorites in this

area?

Michael Dirda: Sure-the old classics--Loren Eisely, in particular. But he's a very meditative sort of science writer, I admit. Ooops . . . Look at the time. I need to take a child to the doctor's and it sure looks like rain and you know, or perhaps don't (lucky you), what the beltway is like when it rains during rush hour.

Sorry I didn't get to all the questions this week. Try me again next Wednesday--and until then: Keep reading!

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