Dirda on Books

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

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Each week Michael Dirda's name appears -- in attractively large type -- in The Post's Book World section, where he writes about new novels, neglected classics, fat biographies, European literature, fantasy, science fiction, thrillers, poetry, works of scholarship, the occasional children's book, almost anything under the rubric of "arts and letters." Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain, well into middle age, a myopic 12-year-old's exuberant passion for reading.

As he has for the past 40 years, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (classical, jazz, oldies, country and western), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, writing. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003), his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book" (Norton, 2003) and a collection of his essays and reviews titled "Bound to Please" (Norton, 2005) Last year he brought out "Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life" (Henry Holt, 2006) and this fall Harcourt will publish "Classics for Pleasure."

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." Dirda is a member of several literary associations, including the Baker Street Irregulars and The Ghost Story Society. Despite a penchant for quiet and solitude, he enjoys giving talks, teaching, and traveling. People tell him that he can be pretty funny for a guy who usually has his nose in a book.

(He also thinks he can be pretty funny at times...)

An archive of his reviews is available here.

An archive of his discussions is available here.

Dirda was online Wednesday, Oct. 31, at 2 p.m.

A transcript follows.

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Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! It's a sunny day here in D.C., and brisk. Tonight's Trick or Treaters will have to bundle up. Tomorrow, your host will be jetting off to the World Fantasy Convention in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., where he will be joined by one or two contributors to this weekly conversation. This year's convention theme is "Ghosts and Revenants," so our friends from Ashcroft will be there as special guests. I'm much looking forward to the weekend -- provided I can finish a book review today.

But enough chit-chat -- no, wait, talking is just what this hour is all about. Anyway, let's look at this week's questions and your thoughts about favorite supernatural tales.

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Alexandria, Va.: Do you have any plans to read the "new" Philip K. Dick novel "Voices from the Street"? Will you or anyone else from The Post be reviewing it in Book World?

Michael Dirda: I can't say whether Book World will review it or not, since I'm not an editor there any more and I generally don't inquire too closely into what's being assigned or published; I've passed that torch and it would be unseemly -- and possibly cause burns -- to seize it again.

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Chapel Hill, N.C. (Audio Book Girl): Hi, Michael.

In a review of Charles Taylor's "A Secular Age," there was a reference to "the now forgotten English novelist William Gerhardie".

Have you heard of him and his work?

I've just started Roberto Bolano's "The Savage Detectives." He's quite wonderful -- unlucky for us he died so young!

On an audio note: I'm listening to the second part of "The History of the English Language" by Seth Lerer. He's mesmerizing... the best teachers always are... I can't recommend this Teaching Company tape enough!

Thanks, as always.

Michael Dirda: Yes, Seth Lerer is terrific. I've listened to his tapes on comedy and, as you may know, interviewed him for C-Span.

As for Gerhardie -- I own all his books, many in first editions. In fact, I reviewed two of them for the Atlantic, when they were reissued by, I think, New York Review Books. The biographer Michael Holroyd is his great champion and has written a couple of fine essays about his work. He's kind of a Chekhovian Evelyn Waugh, if you can imagine such a thing.

I remember copying some passages from "Futility" in my commonplace book. One went something like "So we drank some more brandy, and after a while all things seemed possible."

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Maitland, Fla.: "War and Peace." I liked your review on Sunday.

I've read it twice, once in college and once in the wake of the 2004 election disappointment.

Why, in your opinion, does it not get included in the lists of the 100 Best Novels. I've gone back and looked at the Modern Library, Time magazine, Observer and a couple other recent top 100 lists and don't find War and Peace included. Why not?

Michael Dirda: I find this surprising. Are you sure? In my own youth, "W and P" was almost universally regarded as the greatest of all novels, though immensely long. I suspect that "Anna Karenina" -- a more manageable book -- gets the Tolstoy vote these days, and so "W and P" is neglected. While "AK" is wonderful and perhaps stronger as a unified work of art, I think "W and P" is still the more masterly achievement. It's like those movies that were advertised as "having everything."

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Indianapolis: Mr. Dirda,

It's Halloween, and the question of what's the scariest book or story naturally comes up. When I was in my teens a footnote in William S. Baring-Gould's "Annotated Sherlock Holmes" haunted me for several nights, as if I needed more than The Hound of the Baskervilles." What has scared you?

Michael Dirda: What! You're not telling us the footnote! When I was young, I certainly thrilled to "The Hound of the Baskervilles," but after its wonderful opening, it doesn't sustain the promise of real scariness. For me, my favorite supernatural tales were then, and perhaps still are:

Algernon Blackwood, "The Wendigo"

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wall Paper"

Vernon Lee, "Amour Dure"

My favorite writers of ghost stories now are Sheridan Le Fanu, M.R. James, Vernon Lee, and the enigmatic Robert Aickman.

My favorite scary novels are "Dracula" and "The Haunting of Hill House."

I can't bear to watch horror movies. They're too frightening for one of my refined sensibilities. Just so, I've never been able to read Thomas Harris's novels. I find little pleasure when the tension is too great. What a wimp.

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Dayton, Ohio: Michael -

I picked up an old copy of "Quo Vadis" from the early 1900s at a garage sale recently. Anything you can tell me about this?

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Its title means Whither Goest Thou? It's supposedly a great epic, but I've never read it.

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Chicago: Could you please recommend a collection of ghost stories to read together with kids ages 9 and older?

Thank you.

Michael Dirda: Nine and older? I think some of the collections edited by Alvin Schwartz would still work for this age group. If you'd said 12 and older, I'd suggest the ghostly stories of Robert Westall. These are very fine and scarey. (He's best known as the author of "The Machinegunners.")

Kids of 14 or more should just pick up a good anthology, like the classic Wise and Fraser, or any other collection of great ghost stories. There are many.

For a single story that might work for this group, you probably can't beat Harvey's "August Heat" -- short and powerful.

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Indianapolis: I read "War and Peace" the summer I was 18, and remember that I was surprised that I enjoyed it so much. I have to confess that I tended to scan the battle scenes and ignored them if any characters I cared about weren't in them. It is a great book, and one that's actually quite thrilling.

Michael Dirda: No argument from this quarter.

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New Lenox, Ill.: Re: "War and Peace" not being included in the 100 Best Novels by Modern Library -- it's because they were the "100 best English-language novels of the twentieth century."

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Chevy Chase, Md.: Real life adventure (from a few weeks ago): "Dove" by Robin Lee Graham is about an 18-year-old boy who sailed alone around the world starting from San Pedro, Calif., in a 24-foot sloop. He had always loved boats and his family had sailed around the South Pacific for a year. It took him five years and he survived some bad storms and intense loneliness. He met an American girl in the Fiji's and she saw him at stopping places like Australia. He left with a lot of canned food and he ate seafood that he caught and fruit picked on the islands. At some point his father got National Geographic involved. Jobs that he got in stop off places provided needed funds.

Michael, you say your photos look like 40 but you didn't look too far beyond that in person at the Writers' Center.

Sincere condolences for the loss in your family.

Michael Dirda: Many thanks for the condolences and the kind words about my apparent youth. I do have a birthday next week. Sigh.

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100 Best Lists: I know the Modern Library, Radcliffe and Times list are all limited to those published in the last 100 years or published after 1900. This would explain the absence of "War & Peace." The Observer list does include Anna K., and limits itself to 1 per author. To each their own, I guess!

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

All these lists contain wonderful books, but please don't go by the rankings: They are quite loopy at times.

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Alexandria, Va.: Valancourt Books is reprinting many of Richard Marsh's works (he is best known for the supernatural work "The Beetle," 1897), including a ghost story collection called "The Seen and the Unseen." Marsh was the grandfather of Robert Aickman.

Michael Dirda: I knew about Marsh and Aickman, but am more interested to learn of this collection. When will it be out? I need to get a copy.

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Indianapolis: Re. that footnote in the "Annotated Sherlock Holmes" -- it had to do with one of the possible models for Sir Hugo Baskerville, the evil man who was the first victim of the curse. The model (the name escapes me, of course,) was such a bad man that if you place your hand inside the door to his crypt he'll nibble on your fingers. I know, it doesn't sound like much, but in the middle of a raging Midwestern thunderstorm it made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Michael Dirda: Ooooh, I like that detail. There's a great scene in one of M.R. James's stories where a guy sits down in his chair and his hand hangs over the edge and he starts to pat his dog. But the dog's fur doesn't feel quite right. "And what was there suddenly rose up to meet him." Or something like that. James's delivers quite a shock.

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Richmond Hill, Ga.: I have recently been listening to Armistead Maupin's "The Night Listener" on the way home from work, which Maupin is reading himself. I'm about halfway through and enjoying it very much, although he does not have as many changes in his voice for different characters that most professional readers give. But for this first person novel, whose narrator is a San Francisco writer originally from Charleston, S.C. his voice works well. I know Maupin has lived in SF a long time, but do you know if he is originally from Charleston? And, since you like audio books, do you have any preferences for authors vs. actors as readers?

Michael Dirda: I don't know anything much about Maupin, alas. Poetry I tend to like read by the authors -- unless, they are truly bad readers. Prose works better with professionals, who can do the voices, and sustain the swing of the narrative.

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Lenexa, Kan.: In Daniel S. Burt's book (taught at NYU and Wesleyan) "The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Greatest Novels of All Time," his top five are: 1. "Don Quixote," 2. "War and Peace," 3. "Ulysses," 4. "In Search of Lost Time," and 5. "The Brothers Karamazov."

Michael Dirda: This seems a reasonable list. I would drop "Ulysses" down a bit and stick in "The Tale of Genji" instead. It's not that I don't love "Ulysses" -- I do, in fact I have more books about James Joyce than anyone else in my library -- but I think it's almost more a prose poem or narrative experiment than a novel. It doesn't have the broad reach either of these other books.

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Scaryville: Best scary story ever:

Some fiend read me M.R. James's "The Ash-Tree" at summer camp. The line:

There! something drops off the bed with a soft plump, like a kitten, and is out of the window in a flash; another -- four -- and after that there is quiet again.

Still gives me a shiver.

Michael Dirda: Oh yes. You should definitely check out the Ash-Tree Press Web site.

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Houston: I enjoyed your essay about "W&P" over the weekend. The NY Times is conducting a monthlong, online roundtable discussion of the novel. The latest installment tackled the question of which translation to read. Most seemed to prefer older versions over the PV new version. Though you touch briefly on attractive aspects of the new translation in your piece, you didn't really offer a bottom-line opinion on which is the best version! Would you care to do so here? Reading the novel is such a massive undertaking . I'd like to proceed with the most highly touted version . Thanks very much.

Michael Dirda: I think this is a foolish question -- no, not that you posed it, but that people seem so exercised about it. The Louise and Aylmer Maude has long been the semi-standard, and I've recommended it repeatedly. But there's nothing seriously wrong with Constance Garnett or Rosemary Edmonds. The Pevear-Volokonsky version is just as reliable as any and is arguably the best -- I noticed no bumps and grinds (hmm might want to revise those nouns) in my reading. The real thing is this: Just get on with it and read the damn book. Too much analysis of the translation is the equivalent of graduate student disease -- which is when Ph.D. candidates feel they must always do a little more research before they can actually start writing their dissertation.

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Minnetonka, Minn.: Michael,

I went to buy your new book "Classics for Pleasure" at the local Borders and they did not have it yet. The publisher lists an October release. Others on the list have mentioned that have already read it.

Are you planning a book signing tour?

Michael Dirda: The actual pub date is, I think, Nov. 6 (my birthday). But apparently Amazon has been shipping the book out since local friends have gotten copies that way. It should be in the stores now or soon. Ashcroft saw it in Barnes and Noble in New York City.

I'm signing a couple of places here in D.C., and also in Saratoga Springs, New Orleans, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Raleigh.

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Lansdale, Pa.: For the scariest, or perhaps most disquieting, Lovecraft I would choose "The Whisperer in Darkness." The climax of "Cthulhu" seems a bit too scripted for Ray Harryhausen (before the fact, maybe I should say Willis OBrien) to frighten me; I find the more intimate menace encountered at the end of the "Whisperer" really gets under my skin.

Michael Dirda: Oh, I like that too, though I figured out the trick long before the end. But "Cthlhu" is where Lovecraft really first gets everything together. But a half dozen of his stories are still very powerful for me: "Dunwich Horror," "Colour out of Space," "Rats in the Walls," etc. And I really love the style too. I like its being over the top at times.

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Valancourt Books, Richard Marsh: All of the books are available on amazon.com, but you can find descriptions at the publisher's Web site: www.valancourtbooks.com.

I have all of them, and they are excellent.

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

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Quo Vadis: I like "Quo Vadis," although the film version with Deborah Kerr, Robert Taylor, and Leo Genn, Peter Ustinov is a heck of a good introduction.

But the best Sienkiewicz is "The Great Trilogy" about 17th century Poland: "With Fire and Sword;" "The Deluge;" and "Pan Michal." The last ends with the phrase Faulkner quoted when he won his Nobel Prize for literature -- "The work of many years, written to uplift men's hearts"

Michael Dirda: Many thanks.

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Ashcroft, BC (BR): The question of 'most frightening' ghost stories is a difficult one; individual taste counts for a lot, and as the saying goes, your mileage may vary. But in addition to the ones you list ('The Wendigo' is indeed brilliant: 'Oh my burning feet of fire!') I'd add:

"Smee," by A.M. Burrage, which takes a simple children's game and makes it terrifying

"A Warning to the Curious," by M. R. James, which contains a chilling description of a footprint in the sand: "It was a naked foot, and one that showed more bone than flesh."

"The Eddies," by Garfield Reeves-Stevens, set at Toronto's C.N. Tower and proving that horror lives in the most prosaic settings

"The Red Lodge," by H.R. Wakefield, one of the most frightening haunted house stories ever written

"Lot No. 249," by Arthur Conan Doyle, one of the first and best mummy stories

"The Upper Berth," by F. Marion Crawford

"Bosworth Summit Pound," by L.T.C. Rolt

"Negotium Perambulans," by E.F Benson

"Ringing the Changes," by Robert Aickman

"Two Returns," by Terry Lamsley

To name a few. But really, any stories by these authors are worth seeking out.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Michael Dirda: Many thanks, Ashcroft. As regulars here are aware, Ashcroft knows this material like the back of her/his burning boney feet, uh, I mean hand, and those I know -- Burrage, Doyle, Wakefield, Aickman, James -- are all terrific stories. Must look for the Rolt and the Reeves-Stevens.

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New Lenox, Ill.: Re: You have a birthday next week -- then we have in common that we are both Scorpios.

Michael Dirda: Yes. Not that it's ever done me much good -- the being moody, Byronic, electrically attractive.

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Lenexa, Kan.: Armistead Maupin was born in Washington, D.C. in 1944 (but he may have grown up elsewhere) before he moved to San Francisco and made that city his own. Even though he's gay, he gives me that great feel of youthful excitement that one gets being "in the city" for the first time (only happens once to any of us).

Michael Dirda: Thanks.

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Alexandria, Va.: Re Richard Marsh's "The Seen and the Unseen": It was published in April.

Also available: Marsh's supernatural "The Joss: A Reversion" (1901) featuring"a hideous, subhuman monster from the East."

Michael Dirda: Again, thanks. Ooh, I like the sound of that "hideous, subhuman monster. . . from the East." Can't beat those period stereotypes.

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Aiea, Hawaii: I very much enjoyed your elegant review of "War and Peace." Did you notice your review was on the Top 20 most E-mailed Articles list on Sunday? Also, last week you were quoted in the NY Times Review of Books. Kudos!

Michael Dirda: No, I didn't know that there was even such a list, nor that I was quoted in the NYTBR. I just shuffle around the house in my carpet slippers, absorbed in my books and the search for truth.

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Stevens Point, Wisc.: Since it's Halloween, if you could dress up as any character from the world of literature, who would it be? (Bonus points if it's someone scarey.)

Michael Dirda: When my children and their friends were younger, I could do a pretty frightening version of a Quasimodo-like lurching ogre. It's the way I picture myself anyway, so it wasn't that hard to do when you come right down to it.

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Boston: What is your take on authors revealing character or plot details after publication (like the gay character in Harry Potter)? Isn't there a value of discovery and imagination in literature without the author providing us the "Cliff Notes"?

Michael Dirda: If it mattered that Dumbledore were gay, we wouldn't need the author to tell us so. As such, it seemed a rather foolish revelation, almost a kind of artistic failing, an attempt to be politically correct and socially enlightened. Now, the relationship of Spock and Kirk is another matter . . .

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Friendship Heights, Washington, D.C.: Hi Mr. Dirda,

Have you read Edith Wharton's ghost stories? I liked "Ethan Frome," so thought I'd try them (I liked Lovecraft most though, and that was based on one of your earlier recommendations).

Thank you!

Michael Dirda: I have read some, but not in a long while, and should look at them again. In fact, I'm thinking of going on a Wharton jag (not a term the author would ever use). The story that's best known, and that sticks in my mind, is "Afterwards." Great title, too.

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Re: Quo Vadis: Shouldn't the title be "Quo Vadis?" with a question mark?

Michael Dirda: Probably.

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Glencoe, Ill.:

A while back, you asked me to let you know what I thought of Michael Cox's "The Meaning of Night" and this is my 1st chance to respond. I admired the accomplishment more than I enjoyed it. Cox knows so much about the period and its literature. His decision to finally write it after thinking about it for over 20 years and then becoming seriously ill is inspiring. Certainly he put a lot of thought into it and the plot was intricate, but it seemed sterile to me- possibly because there aren't any sympathetic characters, possibly because it seemed so studied. I'm glad I read it, will read his next one, but I wish that I enjoyed it more.

The best ghost story that I read this year was Susan Hill's "The Woman in Black." It's full of atmosphere, she clearly gets the genre, and the ending leaves you with chills.

Michael Dirda: Your view of the Cox is very similar to my own. In my review I said that it was a serious mistake to lose reader sympathy and identification by having the "hero" murder an innocent man at random, just to prove he can do it. (I kept hoping that that act would somehow be justified, in some peculiar way, but it never is.)

I've not read the Hill, though a friend -- Lexington on this chat -- sent me a copy of her latest ghostly short novel.

That said, Hill's views on the ghost story excited a good deal of controversy on the All-Hallows discussion board -- Hill has a very narrow view of the genre.

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Silver Spring, Md.: I have a problem...I am a huge Hemingway, Joyce, Fitzgerald, etc. fan, but am looking to read some more fiction that is recent. I usually just re-read my favorites by those authors and find myself out of the loop when it comes to recent fiction, since I usually devour nonfiction history, which is great, but sometimes I'm in the mood for new fiction that I haven't read yet! Any suggestions of titles or authors that I should look into? Thanks!

Michael Dirda: You should look at my books of essays -- I often make lists or offer suggestions in them. For instance, in "Book by Book," I mention James Salter's "Light Years" -- beautifully written about the breakup of a marriage: I call it a "Tender is the Night" for our time.

You need to ask yourself what it is you like about the writers you reread -- is it the style, their established importance, the fact that you already know the work? If you like "Ulysses," you should probably try one or two of the" Ulysses" of our time: William Gaddis's "The Recognitions," Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow," perhaps David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest." If you like Faulkner, you'll probably like Cormac McCarthy -- try an easy one, like "All the Pretty Horses."

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Arlington, Va.: I know the earlier poster wanted ghost story recommendations for youngsters, but a good short anthology for an older crowd is Edward Gorey's "The Haunted Looking Glass" published by New York Review Books.

Michael Dirda: Yes, it is a very good book. I was just looking at my copy the other day.

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Best use of Quo Vadis: was in "Last Tango in Paris," when Marlon Brando says to Maria Schneider, "Quo vadis, baby?"

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. That's not what I remember about Last Tango in Paris.

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Lenexa, Kan.: I saw where the NYTBR recently used your critical eye as a bellwether: "Michael Dirda, writing in The Washington Post, had a not-untypical take on the novel: 'As a portrait of the artist as an old man, 'Exit Ghost' delivers pages of great, sad power. But as a work of art it feels unfocused, never quite drawing together its various threads but, in the end, simply relinquishing them.' " Good stuff.

I'm in the middle of an unabridged audio of Denis Johnson's "Tree of Smoke"--set during the Vietnam War period. The novel seems to have been written by someone with great narrative energy. Have you read Denis Johnson? Had professional encounters with him? Thanks as always.

Michael Dirda: Read half of one of his earlier books -- I think it was "Fiskadoro," and couldn't get into it at the time. My lack of sensitivity, no doubt. But it meant that I haven't tried Johnson since. It looks as if I've missed out.

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New Lenox, Ill.: The supernatural tales I've read this October: Walter de la Mare's "Ghost Stories" (I have it in a slim Folio Society edition); and "Demons and Shadows: The Ghostly Best Stories of Robert Westall," which was so good that I felt compelled to read it late into the night. Conditions unexpectedly added to the haunting atmosphere, as the pack of nearby coyotes began to howl, first to each other, and then in chorus, which was spine-chilling; and then the wind began to blow, and I was alone (having not had the foresight to invite someone over to watch me read). I found myself getting out of bed and creeping down the hallway to turn on another light. "Demons and Shadows" has many spooky stories such as, "A Walk on the Wild Side;" "Rachel and the Angel," where the young girl wishes something wonderful and terrible would happen so she can escape her ennui and impending melancholy; and "The Death Wizzards," where the main character wants to know the truth of things in order to be a better poet, and then collides with the corned-beef tins, and the ensuing smell of blood, and the despair of death (which momentarily made me consider going back to being a lacto-ovo vegetarian). The copy I read was from an inter-library loan, but this is a book that I shall keep my eye out for when visiting secondhand bookshops. I had never before heard of "Demons and Shadows," nor was I familiar with Robert Westall's work, until I read about it in a marvelous book, "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" by Michael Dirda. Thanks be to you.

To complete the triumvirate of ghostly tomes, I reread "A Fine and Private Place" by Peter S. Beagle. It's sprinkled with touching, often amusing characters, both living and dead, who haunt a cemetery, wherein they find love. And I mustn't forget the kindly raven with the baloney, who begins the story, nor the poetic red squirrel, who makes a comical appearance later on. I own it in a first American edition, in dust jacket (designed by George Salter), f/f. I initially learned about this book while perusing "A Reader's Delight" by Noel Perrin, which I found while staying on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin, when I went on a nearby jaunt to Delavan, to browse the shelves of a secondhand bookshop called Bibliomanics (they also stock a plethora of bookish paraphernalia, and have on display a casket with used books resting on its lid).

Michael Dirda: Lovely, evocative posting. Ah, Ned! He was a wonderful man and essayist. I was the editor for the pieces in his book, "A Reader's Delight," and it is a book well worth cherishing.

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Bethesda, Md.: I read your interesting review of Pevear and Volokhonsky's new translation of Tolstoy's "War and Peace" in last Sunday's Book World. I must have been a freshman in college when I first read it -- probably the Constance Garnett translation. What I found peculiar in Book World's presentation is:

(1) The cover art, a close up of David's painting of Napoleon crossing the Alps that has nothing to do with Napoleon's Russian campaign. There are paintings of Napoleon and Gen. Kutuzov at the Battle of Borodino and elsewhere. Even Audrey Hepburn as Natasha in the Hollywood version of "War and Peace" would have been more appropriate.

(2) Andrew Bromfield's well-received translation, "War and Peace: Original Version," which was published this year was dismissed in Book World in a short description. You should have tackled that one in your review with the Pevear and Volokkhonsky version. Also a comparison of the two translations would have helped the reader.

Michael Dirda: I won't comment on the art, but I will on the translation question. I was asked to compare the versions and said "why"? No matter how fine Bromfield's translation is, his text is that of a preliminary version of the novel, about two thirds the length of the final book. Anyone who wants to read "War and Peace" wants to read the final, full book. Only scholars will care about an earlier, tentative version. I really can't see that there's any real audience for the Bromfield.

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Re: Ghost stories for young people: John Bellairs's books (e.g., "The House With A Clock In Its Walls") are novels, not short stories, but they are excellent spooky reading for younger readers.

Michael Dirda: Oh, thank you for remembering these. Yes, they are absolutely wonderful for younger kids. And there used to be some terrific audio versions of them too. Bellairs had two different hero-boys, but I like the ones in which the boy teams up with the elderly librarian the best. And I've never forgotten the motto of her library: "Believe half of what you read."

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Annandale, Va.: Hi Michael,

Read any thing good by Donald E. Westlake lately?

I saw you with him as part of a Smithsonian Associates program a few years ago and you did a great job of moderating the discussion.

Michael Dirda: Thanks. I revere Westlake and do mention him in the lede to my review this coming Sunday. But I haven't read any new books by him in a while. I keep meaning to go back to some of the Dortmunder's I've missed, in particular "Drowned Hopes." For people who love gallows humor, with a serious message, you can't beat "The Ax."

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Freising, Germany: I once read the results of a newspaper questionnaire, in which notable authors were asked to name their favorite authors and books. Surprisingly or not, the top 10 was dominated by the Russians, and spots one and three were taken by Leo Tolstoy.

Great Russian literature tends to be quite -- what's the word -- saddening and depressive. Is this perhaps the element that evokes the praise of other notable authors? Are the Russians writers' writers?

Also, seeing as how the Russians excel in evoking sadness and perhaps fear, and seeing as Halloween is upon us, is there such a thing as a Russian ghost story?

Michael Dirda: The Slavic soul is given to melancholy, excess, and the search for both meaning in life and for God. Which for many Slavs is the same thing.

Sure, there are Russian ghost stories. Try Gogol's great supernatural tale, "Viy."

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Monterey, Va.: Good Morning, Michael,

Happy Booday. My Halloween offering is Diane Setterfield's "The Thirteenth Tale" -- have you run across it? It's more eerie than spooky. It's beautifully written -- the plot is a combination of "Jane Eyre" and "Turn of the Screw" ("The Uninvited", based on "Turn," would be a good choice for a scary movie tonight; as for me; I'll just read the newspaper if I want to be terrified). The plot also contains a touch of "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" (also, a good choice for scary movie).

Michael Dirda: Don't know it, but it sounds good.

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Lexington: Michael, Occasionally some journal will ask writers, critics, etc. if they can confess to not having read an important book. Slate today asked quite a few writers to confess, and there were some interesting responses. I'll confess that I've never gotten through "Ulysses" and Proust. I'll start and get bogged down, but with "Ulysses" at least I get another chapter along before abandoning it yet again. At this rate I only have another 10 years to go. I've learned the opening lines by heart after all that and I did shout the opening lines from the top of the Martello tower just south of Dublin. And, I never made it through "The Faerie Queen" -- just too much religious allegory. Care to confess to any important "literary omissions"?

Michael Dirda: Unlike those hacks chosen by Slate, I have read everything. Some of it twice.

In truth, I've sometimes thought of writing a series about "Books I should have read long ago but am only getting around to now." I mean, I've never read the great Chinese novel "The Story of the Stone," for instance.

C.S. Lewis said it's best to read "The Faerie Queene" when you're a child.

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Philadelphia: Books that made you sniffle, tear up, and/or cry....

Since I'm a sensitive guy, here's my list: Alice Sebold's "The Lovely Bones" (I'm stopped at page 47); "One for The Morning Glory" by John Barnes; "A Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge.....

How about you?

Michael Dirda: The number of books at which I've cried is so large I can't even estimate it.

But, now it's time for me to get back to some writing, so until next Wednesday at 2, keep reading! And, if you read something today, try to make it something spooky!

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