Dirda on Books Michael Dirda Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 5, 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."

Albuquerque, NM: Any word on whether Barry Hughart is writing another Master Li novel? I'll always be grateful to you for leading me through your reviews to Bridge of Birds and the sequels. And thanks also for strongly endorsing Philip Pullman's incredible Dark Materials books -with another one this fall, I hope-.

Michael Dirda: The Master Li novels are detective stories/fantasies set in ancient China. So far there have been three--Bridge of Birds won the World Fantasy Award; it was followed by The Story of the Stone and Eight Skilled Gentlemen. They are all beautifully written and quite exciting. I have a feeling, though, that we won't be seeing any more adventures (though I'd love to be wrong). I once called up Hughart to ask him to review a book--he said no, never did that sort of thing--and asked if he had any more novels in the pipelines. He suggested then that he felt he had pretty much exhausted his characters, and didn't think there would be other mysteries for them to solve. Pullman knows how the trilogy will end, and is aiming to finish the book for publication next year. But I'm not sure how far along he is.

Michael Dirda: By the way, I'm writing this chat from Orlando, Florida--where it's a beautiful cool afternoon. Had a bit of trouble signing on, not being as digitally literate as I'd like to be. Since questions come from all over the country (indeed occasionally the world), I can obviously answer from anywhere. I'm down at the University of Central Florida, where I'll be teaching two courses this fall. This week is a kind of orientation for new faculty, even visiting professors. But, as I've said before, I'll still be writing reviews and essays even when I'm away from the Post this fall. The wonders of technology.

Washington, D.C.: So many authors that I adore have mentioned that they, in turn, adore G.K. Chesterton that I have decided to pick up one of his books next. I'm unsure where to begin, though. Can you reccommend one of his books that would serve as a good introduction to the style?

Also, I've just finished Made In America by Bill Bryson and thought it was a wonderful anecdotal history of the American language as well culture -- what's the scholarly view of this book?

Michael Dirda: I'm a great fan of Chesterton too--did you know he provided the model for Dr. Gideon Fell, the great solver of locked-room mysteries in the novels of John Dickson Carr. There exist various best of GKC collections--several out of print--but I would start with two books: The Innocence of Father Brown and The Man Who Was Thursday. The first collects short stories--the best detective stories outside of those about Sherlock Holmes--and the second is a wonderful philosophical fantasy about a poet who joins a group of appqarent anarchists who are named after the days of the week. It's extremely exciting and, finally, a bit mysterious in its end. After these you should look for Chesterton's essays--perhaps those in Orthodoxy. Re Bryson: He's a great best seller in England, but hasn't really caught on here. I've seen critical reviews of his books, so I suspect that scholars don't think all that highly of them. But I speak from vague, second-hand knowledge.

Fairfax, Va.: Do you know how fast you read? About how long does it take you to read, say, a 300-page book? Do you speed read? Do you have an opinion about speed reading in general and speed reading novels in particular? I have so many books I want to read that speed reading seems my only hope!

Michael Dirda: I read quite slowly. In fact, I still move my lips while I read. To finish a 300-page novel can take me anywhere from four to eight hours, depending on the textual difficulty. That is, mysteries tend to go faster than books by writers like William Gaddis. If I have to, I can skim a book and pick up the salient details (or at least some of them). I think it's better to read one or two books really well than to read 20 quickly and with only surface understanding. Thoreau once said that a book should be read as deliberately as it was written.

Bethesda, Maryland: I've recently been reading through the works of Iain Pears, author of "Instance of the Fingerpost" and a number of art history-related mysteries. Do you have any thoughts on Pears or any recommendations of books similar to "Fingerpost" -- i.e. historical mysteries with fairly intricate plotting? -I've also read Eco's "Name of the Rose" and Neville's "The Eight" but prefer Pears.- Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I reviewed An Instance and gave it a rave. I haven't read the art-history mysteries, but my wife has read one or two, and she tells me they are first-rate. I once dubbed the kind of book you're describing the Antiquarian Romance--other good examples are Lawrence Norfolk's Lempriere's Dictionary (the English text is preferable to the American, which cuts some of the fantasy elements), John Crowlely's Little, Big, and A.S. Byatt's Possession. You might also like some historical nonfiction that reads like a mystery: Charles Nicholl's The Reckoning, about the murder of Christopher Marlowe is a good example.

Chicago, IL: I am an admirer of James Salter, particularly with respect to his style, which I think exceptional: baroque and highly fashioned while always cool and subtle. The lushness of his prose seems unique in contemporary fiction. What authors would you recommend who pay similar attention to their style? I am not looking for someone like Salter, but rather, an author who cares for their prose so intensely -- in short, who is worth reading for style alone.

Michael Dirda: Ah, you are a man or woman after my own heart. Salter is one of my favorite contemporary writers--if you read his memoir Burning the Days you will recall the chapter on his literary concience, Robert Phelps, who was in many ways my mentor and a friend much missed by all those who knew him. (A great stylist too.) Besides Salter, I would suggest Steven Millhauser--any of his books, but you might start with Little Kingdoms (three novellas) or the stories of The Barnum Museum. William Gass and Guy DAvenport are brilliant stylists in fiction and essays. So is Russell Hoban, especially in his early adult novels. I think Annie Proulx can write anything--her ACcordion Crimes is a major novel that will gain increasing regard. Cormac McCarthy can write Faulknerian grandiloquence, but at his best he is a writer of great poetry and majesty. Try Blood Meridian--one of the great American novels. I am also an admirer of the early Jeanette Winterson, the late novels of Angela Carter (Nights at the Circus and Wise Children). Salman Rushdie is, among other things, a fabulous stylist, as is Arundhati Roy (great similes). P.G. Wodehouse is a master of the simile, and no one writes purer, nmore classical prose than Evelyn Waugh.

washington, dc: I've always been intrigued by the way works of fiction seem to affect us differently at different periods of our lives. For example, as a teenager I fell in love with "A Farewell to Arms," but couldn't appreciate "For Whom the Bell Tolls." Thomas Wolfe's work also seems to require of the reader the energy and idealism of youth. On the other hand, I've just reread "The Grapes of Wrath" in my forties and found it more compelling than ever. Have you had similar experiences in rereading novels?

Michael Dirda: Yes, I read The Red and the Black when I was 14 and identified strongly with Julien Sorel, the young man from the provinces on the make. In college I read the novel in French and fell in love with Mathilde de la Mole, the chic Parisian he nearly marries at the end (before disaster strikes). But then I reread the novel in my early thirties and knew that Madame de Renal was the most admirable character in the novel, one of the great women of literature. I felt I'd been blind not to see this previously. I hope to write about this phenomenon more directly soon, by rereading some favorite book of childhood. I haven't yet decided which one. . .

Boston, MA: Re: Pullman's Dark Materials series--

Both Locus Magazine and Del Rey -which publishes the paperback versions- report that the third volume, _The Amber Spyglass_, is scheduled for the fall in hardcover -September, I believe-.

Also, I'm a big fan of _Possession_ and a lesser fan of _The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye_. Are there other Byatts I should be reading?

Michael Dirda: I heard that he wasn't going to meet that deadline, but I'd be happy to be wrong. The new Byatt story collection is good--title escapes me for the moment, but it's in the stores--and Babel Tower is part of her multi-book series about intellectual/literary life in Engnladn. She's a very smart novelist, and any of her later books are worth reading. her ghost story,"The July Ghost" is a mini-classic.

Washington, DC: Re: Art History Mysteries...

Aaron Elkins, who writes the Gideon Oliver series of anthropology murder mysteries, has written two or three murder mysteries with an art historian as the detective...

Michael Dirda: There were also two good ones 15 or 20 years ago called The Rembrandt Panel and The Caravaggio Obsession, both by Oliver BAnks. Worth looking for. Also James Goldman's The Man from Greek and Roman.

Washinton, DC: Which do you recommend -- Reading the book before seeing the movie, or vice versa? I ask cause I saw Beloved before reading it. Vice versa with Jurassic Park -which is quite complex on paper-. I enjoyed reading Beloved more, where I enjoyed seeing "Jurassic" less -except for the special effects-.

Michael Dirda: The general rule is Great novels made poor movies and mediocre novels can often be turned into Great movies. On the other hand, I hardly ever go to the movies, and tend to avoid those based on books I care about. Exceptions are jane austen films--I see them all.

Washington Dc: My friend and I have been looking for a book club for awhile. We enjoy reading 20th century popular fiction. We need a book club that is metro accessible. We have had no such luck. So we are starting are own. Any book suggestions? Any hints for the club?

Michael Dirda: You might check with one of the local bookstores; several have book clubs in place and they can probalby guide you. Books with a little edge or controversy to them probably make for better discussions. How about, say, Lolita?

Andre Bernard, New York, NY: Many people objected when the Library of America issued a two-volume set of noir writing -James M. Cain, Highsmith, Goodis, etc.-and a set of Raymond Chandler alongside their existing Mark Twain, Cooper, Poe, Steinbeck, etc. canonical series. What are your thoughts on the noir and crime writers of the 30's-50's? And are there similar writers today -Elmore Leonard?- you think will be read many years from now?

Michael Dirda: I love Chandler, Hammett, Woolrich and several other noir writers. They deserve their place in the canon of the Library of America--they are writers of great artistry, power and influence, as well as chroniclers of the dark side of the American dream. On ther other hand, I don't think I want to read such handsome scholarly editions of The Big Sleep--I want a 35 cent paperback with a lurid cover. Seems more appropriate somehow.

rockville, md: What is your concept of an ideal book review?
I look for enough about the book to know if I am interested in reading it, the reviewer's evaluation of it, and the reasons for the evaluation. I am troubled when the reviewer uses the book as a launching pad for an essay on the topic of the book or a related topic and never gets down to some information that a potential reader can use. I enjoy your reviews because they follow this pattern, but Mr. Yardley too often writes his own essay and I am left wondering what the book was about.

Michael Dirda: I think a reviewer's job is to introduce a book to the world. He should give you some of the plot without ruining the story, quote a bit so that you have a sense of the author's style, compare the book to others by the same writger or on the same subject, and do all this in a style of his own. Jon Yardley and I have different styles, but that's one of the benefits you gain by reading a book section--a variety of tones, approaches and attitudes. Jon and I occasionally argue about approaches to reviewing, but he is a remarkable writer and critic. I could hope to write half as much as he has without burning out.

fairfax va: Do you remember christopher morley? Could you write one -or more- of your charming essays on morley's contributions to 20th century literature? And what do you think of his poetry?

Michael Dirda: I do remember morley. One of his two brothers used to be tghe editor of The Washington Post, and with the other he founded the Baker Street Irregulars. He is, I think, mostly forgotten--a warning to those of us who write essays and journalism. I suppsoe parnassus on wheels has a few readers still. Someday I'd like to write about people of the 20s and 30s who had weekly columns and voices: morley, woolcott, franklin pierce adams, robert benchley, heywood broun, etgc.

Arlington, Virginia: I rely for guidance on new books to read on the recommendations of the "New York Times Book Review" each Sunday. What's your opinion of their selections, on average? Do the editors of the Times have any particular biases that are reflected in their recommendations each week? Thanks, and enjoy your writing.

Michael Dirda: I think the Times, like Book World, tries to be wide-ranging and fair-minded. You can generally trust their judgment. I do think that the TBR can sometimes feel a little gray and official--part of the burden of being the newspaper of record and inhabiting the same town as most publishers.

Arlington, VA: I've noticed that you are a trained classicist and like science fiction-fantasy. Do you think there is a correlation between the two?

Michael Dirda: I"m not a trained classicist. I do have a ph.d in comp lit, and spent two years in grad school as a medievalist (before switching to european romanticism). aLTHOUGH we think of the novel as the dominant genre, in fact through most of the world's history the romance or fantasy has been far more common. Realism is a latecomer. A book like Ovid's Metamorphosis is as fantastic as any you could want. I think modern fantasy writers are part of a long tradition.

Washington, DC: I've wondered for a while why the Sunday Book World is so painfully thin, covering a bare handful of titles. In comparison to, say, the Sunday NY Times Book Review, the Post section comes up woefully short -figuratively and literally-. I have no quarrel with the quality of the reviews; it just seems like the section doesn't cover a whole lot of territory. Any hope for an expanding Book World?

Michael Dirda: If Book World had more advertising support from publishers, we'd have more pages. As it is, we are guaranteed 16 pages on Sunday, regardless of ad lineage. I think that we cover far more books than you realize--many of the new features toucn on multiple titles (think of Jennifer Howard's superb paperback column), as do the myhsteries, science fiction and children's book round-ups. And then there are the lists I frequently append to my reviews, or the teaser items that we include when possible suggesting web-sites or additional reading. I can't argue with your impressions, but I do think we offer a fairly wide range of reading to our audience.

Madison WI: Last week, responding to a question about Rilke, you wrote, "What is the great line at the end of the poem about the leopard? '...You must change your life.'" That great line actually occurs at the end of his poem about the archaic torso of Apollo. Also, the animal he wrote about in the poem you did cite was a panther, not a leopard. Perhaps you were thinking of Lampedusa?

Anyway, let me ask you this: you wrote last Sunday that your "fatal type" of book is "a work of scholarship that is vivacious, seductive, original." What examples of this genre would you most recommend ?

Michael Dirda: Thank you for reminding me of that. Yes, I wrote too fast--I did have the line right--You must change your life. I type these answers as quickly as I can and hit submit, so that sometimes I have second thoughts when it's too late. I love Lampedusa's novel, but could hardly confuse it with a poem by Rilke.
FAtal type--other books are the Charles Nicholl I mentioned earlier: The REckoning, about the death of Christopher marlowe; Robert K. Merton's On the Shoulders of Giants--an investigation of the origin of the prhase that we moderns can see farther because we stand on the shoulders of giants (ie. the ancients), and. oh, A.J.A. Symons The Quest for Corvo--a biographer's storyh of how he searched for information about a notoriously decadent writer of the 1890s. All lovely exiting books. I stole the idea of the fatal type from Mary McCarthy who once called Pale Fire her "fatal type." It's one of mine too.

Arlington, VA: What did you think of The Flanders Panel and The Club Dumas by Arturo Perez-Reverte while we're on the intellectual mysteries theme?

Michael Dirda: Own them, haven't read them, would love to, might write about the new one. or the one after that. I'm told The Flanders Panel is the better of those two.

Bethesda, MD: I am a member of a fairly well-read group house on the Delaware shore this summer and am looking for some good suggestions for beach related reading or books that are just good for the sand to pass on to the gang? Who do you like a la plage?

Michael Dirda: Comic novels and classic mysteries, some science fiction and fantasy. If i were stocking a beach house--and 10 years ago I wrote an essay on just this subject--I'd include at least these books: Wodehouse, Leave it to Psmith; a couple of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels; E.F. BEnson's Lucia novels; a fat anthology of poetry, Edmund Crispins The Moving Toyshop and John Dickson CArr's The Three Coffins; some science fiction by Philip K. Dick and Alfred Bester; Jack VAnce's The Dying EArth and the Eyes of the Overworld. Lots more.

washington dc: book club question again-any specific bookstores you reccommend? most of the bookstores have discontinued their book clubs...

Michael Dirda: don't think I shhould name names. make a few calls.

Arlington, Va : Do you know what's happened to the science fiction reviews in Book World? I used to find a lot of great authors through those reviews, most memorably Connie Willis -who's newest book I never saw a review for-. Any idea if those will ever come back?

Michael Dirda: Yes, the sf column--which I oversee--ran into a few problems during the redesign period, but should be back on track shortly. David Streitfeld wrote a good deal about Willis for a style story on the Baltimore conventino of last year.

Washington DC: A friend of mine are in a wee debate... I argue that Pauline Reage's Histoire d'O is a fine piece of 20th century fiction. He thinks it's low-grade smut. What do you think of the Story of O?

Michael Dirda: I think it's high-grade pornography. That is, it's written in a very pure, classical French, but its subject matter is erotic and meant to be physically and psychologicalloy arousing. My hands grow clammy and my heart races when I read it. We will draw a veil over the rest of my physiology. You and your friend might check out Susan Sontag's famous essay, The Pornographic Imaginaiton.

washington dc: At a number of recent book sales, I've observed book dealers pushing, shoving, throwing elbows at others, sweeping up whole sections of books, etc. Then they expect us to come to their shops and buy from them! I wonder what you -& your readers- think of what seems to be an unfortunate permanent situation?

Michael Dirda: Dealers can be obnoxious at sales--but they need to get their books somewhere. After all, you want to find new material when you go to their shops. I think it's something you have to learn to live with. If you go to the sales after the first day, you won't have this problem.

washington, dc: To what do you account the lack of Black science fiction writers?

Michael Dirda: Don't really know. Octavia Butler and Samuel Delany are first-rate novelists (and Steve Barnes is a good entertaining writer). I suspecty that we will see an increasingly large number of black sf writers in years to come. I remember how struck I was that Arthur C. Clarke made the hero of Childhood's End, written in the 1940s, black. And it's an interesting question to try and determine whether Severian in Wolfe's Shadow of the Torturer series might not in fact be black. I think he is.

McLean, VA: I usually stay away from today's writers because their books seem to be these action-adventure-just-waiting-for-a-Hollywood-screenplay type books or are postmodernist explorations into sexuality. I prefer the classics, especially 19th century British literature because of the intelligence of the language, dialogue and characters. I realize I'm probably missing out on some very fine literature and do want to expand my playing field into today's realm. Can you give me a recommendation of a "must read" with such qualities I find in the classics?

Michael Dirda: Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin novels have many of the characteristics you're looking for. On the other hand, there is so much wonderful Victgorian literature--do you know Gissing, for instance--that you can happily browse for a long time among the classics.
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Michael Dirda: Well, time's up for this week. See you next Wednesday at 2. Sorry if I didn't have time to get to your question. Keep reading!