Dirda on Books – Transcript Michael Dirda Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, September 8, 1999

Michael Dirda The Washington Post

Michael Dirda's name appears weekly in The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a fat literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be writing a lighthearted essay about the joys and burdens of living in a house filled with way too many books. Although he holds a PhD in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda is still smart enough to be an unabashed fan of "The Simpsons," noting that "the show's genius derives from its details." He also loves P.G. Wodehouse, intellectual history, children's books and locked-room mysteries – just the sort of range you'd expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner for distinguished criticism.

These days, Dirda says he spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth and daydreaming ("my only real pastime"). Otherwise he just reads books and writes about them, with occasional visits to secondhand bookstores in search of treasures. He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer working on his reviews and Readings columns. "Do not imagine that I regard my taste for literary artifacts as anything but shameless and vulgar," Dirda says, "I have sunk so low as to covet Edward Gorey coffee mugs. I yearn for a bust of Dante to place on a bookcase."

Michael Dirda: Greetings from Orlando! The weather has been hot and rainy, perfect for reading tales of middle-aged American writers slowly going to seed. In truth, teaching takes up far more time than I suspected, and all my hopes of reading the 15 volumes of Byron's complete letters seem to be slowly fading. If I'm lucky, I may get through a couple of Faulkners and start A Dance to the Music of Time. But at the moment I've been immersing myself in Colette. Sensuous and sensual. But enough. Time to chat!

Falls Church, VA: I am in awe of your 1- extraordinary literary databank -from which you appear to be able to retrieve minute and arcane details from works you read decades ago- and 2- the unbelievable layered, diverse, interesting, and BUSY literary schedule you keep. Reading your periodic to-do list-diary makes me wither with jealousy and wonder. Oh well. -This is the closest I've ever come to fan mail, BTW-

My question-comment: At age 37, I've picked up Lolita again after about a 15 year hiatus -having put it down somewhat revolted by it and feeling that its supposed literary value was far overshadowed by the inconsequetiality of its obsessed subject's musings-. On this reading, I am far more struck by the elegance, originality and wit of Nabokov's language. I also am no longer disgusted by HH -and in fact am caught up by the "plot," and may even detect a hint of universality in the message-. Nevertheless, I still don't get what all the fuss is about. It's a book with much merit, but I've read lots of books that I believe have more to say to the world, and do so with style. Finally, I've read no other Nabokov - despite being a Cornell alum - will Pale Fire, eg, ignite my imagination more so? It's his language which I think is his standout gift. Can you shine your thoughts on this subject?

Thanks for thr opportunity to ask!

Michael Dirda: Well, I think you're exactly right: Nabokov's language lies at the heart of his strong appeal to readers and writers. Gorgeous, wistful, funny--it is a sensuous pleasure to listen to Humbert's confession. "Caress the details"--N famously advised his classes in literature at Cornell. He also felt that it wasn't the elements of a story that mattered, but their combination. So you can read Lolita almost as a mystery--who is the Other Man in Lolita's life? And once you know the answer it's fun to look for the clues. Of course, Alfred Appel's Annotated Lolita spells everything out, and I hesitated before using that edition in my course here. Pale Fire is my favorite Nabokov, but you really have to like literary games to enjoy it. Speak Memory is beautifully written, so that might be the next book to try. Still Lolita is a text of considerable subtle richness: Is Humbert a monster? Does he or doesn't he come to truly love Lolita?
As for my literary schedule, since coming down here I've been playing catch-up for weeks and, like alice, finding myself falling more and more behind.

Washington DC: Is there a definitive -yet not dry- biography of Elizabeth I that you would recommend? My interest has been piqued by the movie -just saw it last weekend- and when I went into Borders last night, I saw two relatively recent-looking biographies-histories of her reign. Any preferences?

Michael Dirda: The J.E. Neale biography has long been the standard one. It may be out of print now, but turns up readily in second-hand shops. I think--not sure--that Jasper Ridley may have one more recent and it's probably good. A related classic is Garrett Mattingly's The Armada.

washington dc: Michael-are there any good cheerful books out there you'd recommend? I made the mistake of reading Angelas Ashes, Cold Mountain, and White Oleander this summer and had to go back to therapy I got so depressed. Why does it seem like all the bigtime prize winning -and Oprah bookclub- books are so depressing? Why can't there be more books like Duane's Depressed which speaks to mid-life changes -hum, you might enjoy it- but is actually funny. Any recommendations?

Michael Dirda: Well, I'm always going on about comic novels, so let me send you to P.G. Wodehouse, Randall Jarrell's Pictures from an Institution, David Lodge's Small World, Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels, Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall. though not exactly comic, Robertson Davies books are also rich, funny, and atmospheric books--Try Fifth Business or What's Bred in the Bone. I think your mistake is relying too much on best-seller lists and current books. Look to the past!

Washington, DC: Do you think the screenplay has replaced the novel as the dominant literary form of the millenium?

Michael Dirda: God, I hope not.

washington dc: care to cite the WORST biography you have read -let's narrow it to literary biography-?

Michael Dirda: That's a toughie. the most disappointing one was probably Michael Holroyd's Shaw--I read the first two of three volumes, and though it was engrossing and Shaw a fabulous character, the book never quite came to life for me. The best unknown literary biography, by the way, is Rupert Hart-Davis's Hugh Walpole, an entrhalling account of a clever young writer on the make in early 20th-century English letters. he was once wildly popular, now pretty much forgotten, but makes a superb character for a biography.

Fairfax, Va.: Recently, on one of those extremely rare occasions when I wasn't reading, I spent a couple of hours watching "Shakespeare in Love" -an excellent movie, incidentally-.

After the movie, I found myself hungering for biographical information on the Bard. Can you recommend a good biography? What is considered the preeminent one?

Michael Dirda: Strangely enough, I just saw Shakespeare in Love myself this past weekend. I liked the movie too--though I was annoyed at the portrayal of John Webster as a snivelling, warped psychopath kid. (I love Webster--that great dying speech of Bosola in The Duchess of Malfi--the one that ends: "Mine is another voyage."--great stuff). The best biography of Shakespeare may still be S. Schoenbaum's Shakespeare: A Compact Documentary Life. The same author's magisterial Shakespeare's Lives is a study of all the legends and biographies written about the bard since his death. You get wonderful portraits of great scholars and even greater crackpots. Plus Schoenbaum is an exceptionally clear and witty writer. He is much missed.

Washington, DC: So how's your exercise and diet program coming along?

Michael Dirda: Still jogging for 35 or 40 minutes three times a week. Eating a wider variety of food now, partly because I could actually gain a little weight. But I've had trouble getting into a good free weights routine down here. The days seem to slip by before I know they've started.

washington, dc: Have you read the new translation of "The Charterhouse of Parma" by Howard? Better than its predecessors?

Michael Dirda: I've looked at it, keep meaning to read it and write about it, but haven't so far. The old Scott Moncrieff never captured the book's magic, and I'm certaini Howard will have done a better job. But I have a suspicion that the chartreuse may be one of those novels that really doesn't translate well. Still, I was intrigued to read in Italo Calvino's recent collection of essays that to him, as a young man, c de p was the greatest novel in the world. Especially the first 80 or so pages.

Montvale, NJ: I have just started reading Peter Taylor's "The Old Forest". I do like his writing...life was somehow simpler then - -no confusing women's lib- I'm not saying that was better, but somehow everyone having a specified role was easier. What writers can you recommend that have a similar style?

Michael Dirda: You might try other southern writers--Eudora Welty, for example, or Walker Percy. My hero Randall Jarrell was a close friend of Taylor's, so I'm predisposed to like his work, but for some reason it never struck quite the right chords for me. It was OK, insightful, etc., but I suspect I like a bit more flamboyance in writers. Or I may have read him when I was too young or in the wrong mood.

Centreville, VA: Come on, doesn't anybody want to be first? I'm reading Lawrence Durrell's letters in Spirit of Place. He says something about writers who try to be too urbane, who don't like anything too hot or that disturbs at all. What a contrast with The Old Forest--does anyone else find these genteel southerners as irritating as I do? Patronizing, simpering parasol twirlers. I find myself approaching this like an assignment in lit class. I'm sure I'll get something out of it but I think I'll enjoy some of the other selections a lot more.

Michael Dirda: Funny, yours should be the next question. See my previous comment on Taylor. I wouldn't go as far as you, but I'm in basic agreement. (Sorry, Jon! Make me change my mind!)

Fairfax, Va: Michael -
I just read the first Harry Potter story from JK Rowling and I have to say I was utterly charmed. Kipling meets Dahl meets the Hardy Boys! -ah, my mis-spent youth...-

What's your opinion on why these tales are so appealing to adults as well as to children?

Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Didn't know they were that appealing to adults, but I think you're analogies are right on the money. Harry has the sort of adventures we all wish we'd had when we were kids.

Arlington, VA: Dear Michael:
In your review of Michael Frayn's "Headlong" -Book World, Sept. 5-, you concluded the review by saying you considered this 342-page book an "intelligent evening's entertainment." Did you really read this book in an evening? If so, what is your secret? Do you write as fast? How long did it take to write the "Headlong" review? Needless to say, I admire both your reading and writing abilities. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I hardly ever get an entire evening to read, but the book could be read in something like three to five hours. I don't think a page a minute is particularly fast for this kind of novel. I write fairly slowly too: Most of my reviews take from four to eight hours to do, but I enjoy polishing, which probably takes a quarter of that time. In the case of Frayn, my original review was perhaps 20 percent longer, but it was cut so that we might run the King piece underneath. That issue was light on reviews--because of the fall forecast--so we trimmed what was a mixed review. You can't be too pure an artist and still be a journalist.

DC book club member: Love the chat, have learned lots here.

There was a question last week -I think- about a good place for a book club to meet. My club has the same problem -- quiet place, central location in city, Metro-able, doesn't mind people spreading out books and papers, reasonably cheap eats and drinks.

We've tried XANDO -can be noisy and crowded-, District Chophouse -only good on nights the MCI center doesn't have anything going on-, a few more, but not found the ONE perfect place.

Any suggestions from the crowd?

Michael Dirda: Thanks. I don't have any recommendations, but if others do, I'll pass them on.

Washington, DC: What are your thoughts on Fred Exely's A Fan's Notes?

Michael Dirda: One of my favorite books of all time. I read it in graduate school, doled out one chapter a night as a special treat after working all day on my dissertation. The humor, prose, sensibility--irresistible. My colleague Jonathan Yardley recently published a short biography of Exley, by the way. Jon and I disagree about many literary matters, but not about Exley, Mencken and Garcia Marquez--favorite of both of us.

Alexandria, VA: Sometimes I want to read an
obscure out of print novel,
which my county library doesn't carry. Do you know of an area university library that allow non-students to
use inter-library loan?

Michael Dirda: I believe you can pay something like $100 and receive a library card at the University of Maryland. But won't a regular public library find things for you? Or go to a used bookstore.

Woodside Park, SS, MD: Any word on when, if ever, the final work from William Gaddis will be published? I heard there is a manuscript finished or nearly finished turning on player pianos.

Regards to Seamus.

Michael Dirda: I've heard there was such a manuscript, but have no idea whether it will be published. It's at times like this that I especially regret the departure to Silicon Valley of my good friend David Streitfeld, for a dozen years the premier publishing reporter in the country. As he would say, there are only two or three altogehter.

washington, dc: Dear Mr. Dirda,

I wonder if you would be so good as to tell us whether or not you have had the opportunity to experience the joys of EF Bensen's "Lucia and Mapp" series - I happened upon them years ago and must admit to being somewhat of a compulsive re-reader of them, especially when the day or week's events seem too exhausting to contemplate; this is when I pick up my Lucia compendeum and allow its magnificantly crafted sparks of wit and sophistication to wash over me....

PS: I also wanted to tell you that I photocopied your June 29 Post essay concerning thoughts to graduates and passed it along to several friends - you expressed perfectly what compels so many of us lovers of literature to continue taking delight in the written word.

best wishes,
Anna Walsh

Michael Dirda: Last summer in August and September I devoted a couple of columns to the Lucia books and some related comic fiction. I am indeed a great admirer of Benson. There's a wonderful chat group devoted to the Mapp and Lucia novels; I no longer have time to follow it, but for months was addicted to its witty conversation about these very witty books.

Tokyo, Japan: Hello, I'm a young lad of 24, whose sudden plunge into the working world and adulthood has
triggered deep musings as to what does and should motivate the things I do. It has occurred to me that I'm not sure what I seek - while there seems to exist
an endless supply of literature which
provides "answers" to life, can you
recommend something which attempts to list the relevant questions?

Michael Dirda: As it happens, I'm thinking about just such matters myself, having written an advice to graduates piece in which I discuss, sort of, such wisdom literature. I don't know if there's a book that lists the questions, but you could do worse than start with the wisest thinker on such matters: Montaigne. He has long been my choice to represent humanity to the Pan Galactic Council.

Dupont Circle: I just finished reading "The Spell" by Alan Hollinghurst. I loved it, but was wondering what the critics say?

Michael Dirda: Haven't read it. In general, Hollinghurst is admired for his style, though none of his books has received quite the whole-hearted praise of the first, The Swimming Pool LIbrary. On the other hand, what matters is not what the critics think, but what you think.

Washington DC: I liked Richard Ford's Sportswriter-Independence Day series. He reminds me of male Ann Tyler, in that he writes about people in real situations. What is your opinion of him, and are there any other of his books you could recommend.

Michael Dirda: Well, I sheepishly admit not to have read any Ford. I did look at Independence Day and something about the prose failed to ignite my interest. On the other hand, Eudora Welty has made him one of her literary executors, and Ford himself reveres one my favorite writers, novelist James Salter. So I should give him another chance--as if he needed my approval.

Arlington, VA: I am a first time author and I am writing a "fictionalized" memoir. It deals with how we learn what terms such as love, faith and hope mean by examining one summer in a young African American girl's life. I chose this genre, if there is such a genre, because I wanted to tell a larger story than what a straight memoir would allow. I have taken writing classes before and I will be taking a course in the fall that will allow me to work on the book in a workshop setting. I really think I have something good here, a story that hasn't been told, at least in this manner. What I want to know is how to get my book published or at least given real consideration, at which point I may be told forget it. What I want is a real shot, how does a first time author create that shot?

Michael Dirda: The usual way, I think, is to find a published writer who believes in your work and will recommend it to his or her agent. If the agent likes it, then he or she will peddle it to editors, and see what they think. If you're lucky, one will bite. In other words, you need to write as well as you can and talk to your writing instructors. If they haven't published, you need to locate someone who has. If you're at a university, try there. If not, you might look into one of the local writing groups, such as Washington Independent Writers or The Writer's Center. By the way, the Exley book we talked about earlier, A Fan's Notes, is essentially a fictionalized memoir.

Washington, DC: What do you think about some of the younger writers like Thom Jones, David Foster Wallace and the guy who wrote The Fight Club? They get great reviews, but their prose reads more like screenplays to me. Maybe I just don't have a stomach for modern fiction. The only writer of that generation I enjoy is Michael Chabon.

Michael Dirda: These writers don't seem that much alike to me, and I'd be surprised if Infinite Jest could be made into a movie. But I'm always wrong about these kinds of things. I'm sure, in part from my conversations with young would-be writers here at the University of Central Florida, that most young people dream of making it big ini Hollywood. I think it natural, given their backgrounds. Kids watch tv and go to the movies, but almost no one devours books the way they used to. Once books were a way to success, but now our idols are people like Bill Gates rather than Bill Faulkner (who, of course, also wrote screenplays to pay the bills, including one for Chandler's The Big Sleep). The writers who count tend to be those whose books could not be made into successful movies. But that's a fairly sweeping generalization, especially coming from a guy who hardly sees a film a year.

Orlando, FL: Hi there. I hoping to find out if you know when Sontag's book, IN AMERICA, is supposed to be released? I've been waiting for it for some time now.

Michael Dirda: Sometime this fall, probably october. See the fall preview last sunday in bookworld. Orlando, huh? One of my colleagues here in the English department lurking in cyberspace?

Omaha, NE: Can you recommend any particular biography of Goethe in English?

Michael Dirda: Yes, there's a very fat life, published by Oxford, of the young Goethe, by--oh shoot--the name escapes me. I'll think of it just as I hang up. But it is very long and only volume one has appeared so far. Richard something? There is a useful short life by Henry Hatfield, done for new directions years ago. ERic Blackall wrote a good study of the fiction, and Thomas Mann has a couple of famous essays, as does ERich heller. Have you read The Elective Affinities? A wonderful novel about love's cross-currents.

Washington, DC: I noticed that Tim O'Brien's latest, "Tomcat in Love," is now out in paperback, along with new reissues of O'Brien's other works. The books are dubbed "New Classics," or something to that effect. I agree with that assessment, but I'd like to know your thoughts on O'Brien, and on book marketing that dubs a book released this year as a "classic."

Michael Dirda: Anything that's called a new classic probably isn't. Tim O'Brien's a good novelist; my former colleague David Nicholson thought Tomcat was hilarious, a great and funny read. Other reviewers felt it was something of a dud.

Michael Dirda: Well, time's up for this week. Thanks for sending in your questions and spending a little time talking about books with me. In an hour I go to give a quiz on the first half of Lolita to 40 worried undergrads. I've told them to pay close attention as they read, but I fear my questions may throw them: How, for instance, does Humbert Humbert's mother die? As Nabokov would say, Caress the details. Until next wednesday at 2, keep reading!

washingtonpost.com: And don’t forget. Now, everyday at 1 PM, you can read the Post’s new PM Extra. It’s a new, special, updated version of The Washington Post newspaper, exclusively online. So, every day at 1 PM EDT, you'll be able to get the day's top stories (plus some special extras) written by Washington Post reporters. So, be sure to come back to www.washingtonpost.com everyday at 1 PM EDT and check it out.

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