Dirda on Books – Transcript Michael Dirda Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, November 10, 1999

Michael Dirda The Washington Post

Following is a transcript of the discussion.

Washington, DC: A couple of Nabokov questions, generated by your review of Lo's Diary. Could the flatness of the language in Lo's, which you complain about in your review, be seen as the REAL voice of Lolita, only a callow teeny-bopper -or at least an attempt to remind us who and what Lo really was? The wonderful imaginativeness of Nabokov's prose does, after all, mask a horrible set of events. Also, if Nabokov's book were published today -in the climate of current opinion - how do you think it would fare?

Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books, still broadcasting from the sunny, spacious campus of the University of Central Florida in Orlando. It continues to be fun pretending to be a college professor for a semester. Moreover, I am relieved to have the Honors Symposium Lecture behind me--a prepared address for approximately 500 people. Subject? Books, reading, the future of civlization as we know it. That sort of thing.

In the meantime, on with the questions.

Re: Lo's Diary. I'm sure that Pera hoped to imitatate a callow teeny-bopper voice at some places, but at others she gives Lo a maturity beyond her years. In Lo's Diary there is no tragic series of events--the whole book feels not only pathetic, but bathetic--a fall from a great height.

I would hope that Lolita would be regarded as a brilliant piece of writing and work of art no matter when it was published. No doubt those aspects that troubled the book's author and its early readers would be the very ones now titillatingly emphasized.

New York, NY:
What has to go: TV, magazines, newspapers, other in order to read as many books as you do?

Michael Dirda: None of these has to go entirely, but you can't spend 6 hours a day on them either. I tend to watch very little television--for a while, nothing more than 30 minutes a day of "The Simpsons." Down here in Florida, I've occasionally watched "Law and Order," "Ally McBeal," "The West Wing," some Sunday morning news shows--but I still probably don't look at more than a couple hours of television a week. I glance at news magazines, skim the daily paper. I do read around in quite a few literary reviews: the TLS, The Spectator, The London Review of Books, The New Criterion, The American Scholar, The New York Review of Books, etc. Such journals provide relaxation for the bathtub and metro. Still, on the whole, I place reading books pretty near the top of the things I like to do; and if I don't read for at least an hour or two a day, I start to feel uneasy, antsy, disoriented. Still, I'm not really a heroic reader--I haven't read for 6 or more hours at a stretch in years. But slow and steady still wins the race.

Albuquerque, NM: What do you think about listening to books on tape? Walking to and from work I've listened to several P.G. Wodehouse books -including The Mating Season, finally!- read by Jonathan Cecil, a wonderful British actor, and have moved on to 20 hours of Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone. Are there any recorded readings that you particularly recommend? I'm sure you value the printed word foremost, but strolling and reading are not easily accommodated. Of course strolling and random bursts of raucous laughter may look somewhat odd, but the fun is well worth any stray startled looks.

Michael Dirda: I love well-read audiobooks. Oddly enough, my copy of The Code of the Woosters doesn't quite capture me, hoever. I'll have to try Cecil (The Mating Season is one of my Wodehouse faves). For a long while, I'd only listen to unabridged tapes--and I still feel one can only aurally "read" an uncut text. But the wonderful tapes from Naxos have changed my mind. The abridgements are skillful, but the real glory lies with the readers, nearly all of whom possess wonderful British voices. My favorites include Gibbon's Decline and Fall; Tales from the Norse Myths; and Joyce's Ulysses, this last a series of chapters magnifently intepreted by Jim Norton. Among unabridged tapes I particularly like Jeremy irons' reading of Lolita. Still, there are few pleasures as unexpected as being enthralled by a well-read audio book while driving at 70 miles per hour on the Pennsylvania turnpike at 1 in the morning.

Loganville, OK: Do you think that Anthony Burgess is under-appreciated, at least in the U.S.? I don't know many people who have read beyond A Clockwork Orange, but the man wrote something like 46 books. Of the 7 or 8 I have read, my favorites were A Dead Man in Deptford, a Libra-like reconstuction of the murder of Kit Marlowe -with a recreation of 16th Century prose reminiscent of Mason & Dixon and The Sot-Weed Factor, but much more poetic and engaging- and "Byrne," a Byronic poem Burgess finished shortly before his death. What is your favorite Burgess?

Also, can you recommend another modern novel dealing with the Post-Reformation period?

Michael Dirda: Yes, Burgess is vastly undervalued--in part because he wrote so much and often too quickly. The End of the World News is a terrible, if interesting, book. My favorite Burgess novels are Enderby--about the misadventures of its ephonymous poet hero; Nothing Like the Sun--about Shakespeare's love life (and much as I admire Dead Man in Deptford, which I reviewed, I still prefer Sun); and his vast Earthly Powers. Yet Burgess' masterwork may be the two volumes of his autobiography: Little Wilson and Big God and You've Had Your Time (great title, that). These are boisterous, word-mad, evocative, Rabelaisian books--an amazing amount of fun to read. And, of course, Burgess was also a superb, if sometimes slapdash, book reviewer-try Urgent Copy and Homage to QWERTYUIOP. And then there are his books about Joyce--ideal introductions, esp re: Joyce. An amazing career for a guy who didn't really get started until he was past 40.

Sci-fi girl, VA: I just finished reading William Gibson's new book, All Tomorrow's Parties, and was sort of disappointed. While the quality of Gibson's writing is still pretty good, I really felt that he assumed that everyone had read, and remembered, Idoru and Virtual Light. -Since my books are currently packed away, I suffer what you suffer, non-access to my beloved books. I also feel that Gibson suffers from being overshadowed by Neal Stephenson, who has shown a wider range, -in fact, I felt that Virtual Light was a pale shadow of Snowcrash. Do you think Gibson may be played out?

Michael Dirda: Did you read my review of Parties? I make your same points, albeit fairly gently. Yes, I think Gibson needs to move on, and I hope we are done with the Bridge books. The writing, though, remains a pleasure--very self-assured, fast-moving, etc. Alas, I haven't read Stephenson--know I should, but just haven't gotten to him yet--so can't compare his work to Gibson's. It must be something of a burden to start one's career with Neuromancer and stories like "Johnny Mnemonic.".

Madison, WI: Any thoughts about the work of the late Mark Van Doren? His poetry won the Pulitzer -though they give that to just about anybody, as you know-. He wrote well-received studies of Dryden, Shakespeare, epic poetry, Don Quixote, and a host of other mostly literary topics. He also was the most beloved professor of his day at Columbia University. Paul Scofield played him in "Quiz Show," about his son Charles's troubles.

Michael Dirda: Being of a certain age, I read a lot of Mark Van Doren when I was first discovering serious books: The Noble Voice, his study of epic poetry; Shakespeare--very graceful and intelligent appreciations; and one or two other books. Van Doren was invariably thoughtful and wrote gracefully, but he was probably too mild a critic to have staying power. It's the wild men of interpretation, the system-builders and pioneers, who stay vital: William Empson, Northrop Frye, F.R. Leavis. We want Superman, not Clark Kent.

Clifton, VA: I loved your recent comments about your visit to New Orleans. We, too, fell for the city, unexpectedly. A Confederacy of Dunces was our first must read and in the course of the last four years we have joyfully encountered a couple of Ignatius J. Reillys. If you haven't already read it, we recommend the John M. Barry book, Rising Tide.

Michael Dirda: Thank you for the mention of the Barry book. As it happens, John Barry wrote me a very complimentary letter about my profile of the city--though he argued that I should have eaten my po-boy at Acme's rather than Felix's. My informants tell me that this is a long-standing argument in New Orleans. Well, I did fall in love with the city and hope to return next year.

Rockville: I wasn't surprised by your review of Lo's Diary. I think that, on the whole, such books are just lesser talents ripping off the ideas of better ones. I guess I was in the minority, but I thought that Robert Coover's version of Pinocchio, and that book about Dr. Jekyll's maid, Mary Something, were both inferior to the originals. Are there any books within this peculiar genre that you would consider great or even very good?

Michael Dirda: Mary Reilly. Hmmm. No good example springs to mind. There is, of course, Woody Allen's great story about Madame Bovary, "The Kugelmass Episode," in which a modern Jewish guy has an affair with Emma. Many critics do consider the second part of Don Quixote to be superior to the first--but this isn't quite the same thing. Being a Nabokov fan, I simply felt obligated to read Lo's Diary, and hope for the best. I was disappointed.

Bethesda, MD: Michael -

What foreign languages do you speak? Have you ever done any comparisons between a book in the native tongue and its canonical translation into English?

I struggle with my French, but I've found Camus' essays to be wonderful in that language -Noces sur l'Ete, notably-

Michael Dirda: I used to know French very well--wrote my dissertation on Stendhal and lived in Marseille for a year (my notorious gun-running days, over which we draw a veil). Can read, with effort, German, Italian, Old English (used to be a medievalist), simple Latin. I am woefully undereducated.

Camus actually translates very well--do you know the two volumes of his notebooks? Aphoristic, witty, irresistible. I read Nocesand L'ete years ago, on a sunny afternoon, in Aix en Provence, in a crisp new livre de poche. Bliss.

Silver Spring: I came across The Horn Book in the public library and was impressed with it's scope in covering children's books. Are you familiar with it, and if so do you think it provides decent reviews?

Michael Dirda: The Horn Book is the children's book equivalent of the Times Literary Supplement. It carries immense influence; the reviews are generally fair and thoughtful, but one should bear in mind that the reviewers are, for the most part, professional librarians rather than literary critics. Which can be good or bad, depending on one's point of view.

Fairfax, VA: Michael-

A propos of the 10th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, what memoirs or recent historical works would you recommend for an interesting look at the fall of communism?

Michael Dirda: Communism fell? When did this happen? Maybe I've been in Orlando too long.

Some books: David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb; Timothy Garton Ash's books about Germany; Norman Davies work on Eastern Europe.

Bethesda, MD: Has anyone ever commented that your photo on this site is eerily similar to Austin Powers?

Is it just the picture or are you a body double?

Michael Dirda: Hmm. Do I get a shagadelic girlfriend if I say yes? As it happens, the photo there is 7 years old, and I look even more devastatingly handsome now.

Bethesda, MD: In the past few years, I've been making my way through the Gore Vidal collection, fiction and nonfiction -although some would say much of his latter is the former-. I've read much of his autobiographical work, including Palimpsest. That being the case, is the new biography -Fred Kaplan, I think- worthwhile, or would the $35 be better spent buying more of Vidal's stuff?

Michael Dirda: I haven't had a chance to check out the Kaplan life. My instinct, though, is always to go for primary texts first. If you've read the essays and the memoir, along with a couple of novels (Myra Breckenridge, Julian, Lincoln), then maybe go on to the bio. But Vidal himself is going to be more fun to read, I'm sure.

Seattle, WA: In your opinion, what is the purpose of a book review? I've been wondering about that as it seems that many of the book reviews I've read lately are plot synopses with a minor paragraph tagged on at the end providing some kind of qualitative comment about the book. I don't find that helpful or informative--the dust jacket or back cover would do the same thing.

Is the purpose to discuss a book's attributes? To render some kind of judgement about whether it's worth a reader's time and money? To publicize little-known books of quality? What do you think?

Michael Dirda: A review introduces a new book to the world. It should entertain as well as inform. Ideally, the critic should aim to describe the book as accurately as possible, so that the reader can determine whether it's the sort of thing he or she likes. Some quotation is essential to give a sense of the author's style or tone. One should compare nonfiction to other books on the same subject; fiction should be placed in the context of a writer's career, noting whether a new novel is an advance or not. Judgment is a relatively minor business. It's always nice to find oneself enthralled by a little-known book. In fact, most of the books I really like seldom go on to become best sellers. But I hope people enjoy reading my pieces, and that sometimes they are inspired to go out and buy a book or two.

Chicago:
Lord of the Barnyard: Killing the Fatted Calf and Arming the Aware in the Cornbelt is an amazing piece of fiction by Tristan Egolf. From what I have heard, he is a young American, but no US publisher would print the book. Any ideas why?

Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Money. For whatever reason, publishers don't think the book would make them any money. Quite possibly, it's a terrible book, without merit. Since there are so many different kinds of publishers these days, if no one wants a particular book it likely has no real audience.

vienna,va: I've recently discovered Richard Yates' novels -- Revolutionary Road, A Good School, The Easter Parade -- and enjoy them very much. Unfortunately, I don't know much about him and haven't been able to find out much. Is he still alive? Still writing? What is your opinion of his work? Would you recommend any other books of his? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Yates is dead now. His books, especially those you mention, were and are much admired, but the man himself was depressed over his failure ever to be reviewed on the front page of the New York Times Book Review. I suspect that he is one of those good, even very good, writers who will be gradually forgotten. We scarcely have time for the great novelists of the past, and for those anything less we tend to be shamefully neglectful.

Well, that's our hour for this week, folks. Until next Wednesday at 2, keep reading!

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