Dirda on Books – Transcript Michael Dirda Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, May 19, 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."

Paris, France:
I eagerly await your columns, and now, this chat. I'm grateful that moving to Paris didn't mean giving up the Post!

It was one of your columns a few years ago on the topic of book lists that led me to Rilke's The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge, which I count as my most ecstatic novel-reading experience. It's a language feast, even in translation -at least, in the translation by Stephen Mitchell-. Can you recommend other such language feasts by poets turned novelists, or others? -You answered a similar question two weeks ago but I'm looking specifically for additional examples of what might be termed highly poetic prose. Cormac McCarthy is already on my list, and I agree with your assessment of Blood Meridian.- Thanks.

Michael Dirda: You should read William Gass's essays and fiction--he lists Malte as his favorite book, and he himself writes gorgeously brocaded prose. Also, you might try the 17th-century writers, especially Thomas Browne and Jeremy Taylor.

Washington, D.C.: I just finished reading "Madame Bovary." Do you agree with a critic who said that it was Flaubert's tool of purging himself of Romantic tendencies and not only the story of a dissatisfied housewife but of the author himself?

Not to correct the master, but last week you said that Rodolphe -lover #1- and Emma had a grand ol' time in a room near a railroad station. You must have meant Leon -lover #2-, whom she met in a room, though I don't recall it being near a railroad station. And for my money, the most exciting time in "Madame Bovary" was Leon and Emma's first encounter, which took place in a coach that "tossed about like a ship."

Michael Dirda: I think I did qualify which lover by a question mark--but thanks for the correction. Hard for me to think of myslef as a master.
As for Bovary purging romantic tendencies, I don't think so. AFter all, Flaubert went on to write the bloody and overthetop romantic Salammbo, as well as L'EDucation Sentimentale. Both, I suppose, could be considered further critiques of the romantic approach to life. Certainly romanticism costs Matho his life, and the characters in ES nearly all come to sad ends. Certainly F became more leery of romantic tendencies after Bovary, or perhaps after adolescence.

Winston-Salem, NC: I know your forte is fiction, but shouldn't there be room in the Modern Library 100 best works of non-fiction for authors like John McPhee, Joseph Mitchell and Calvin Trillin on style points alone?

Michael Dirda: I'm not sure that fiction is my forte. The modern library 100 is just a gimmick--you give it to much credit. However, A.S. Byatt--he said, dropping a name--told me that the panel was now working on a comparable nonfiction list. Certainly, Joseph Mitchell belongs high on that one. Up in the Old Hotel is one of my favorite books, one I got to review. Mitchell liked my remarks well enough to send me signed copies of the Modern Library edtions of Bottom of the Harbor and Old Mr. Flood.
I'd also include on my list: Flann O'Brien (writing as Myles na Gopaleen), Janet Flanner, Kenneth Tynan, M.F.K. Fisher, Loren Eiseley, Truman Capote, and a dozen others.

Arlington, VA: Hemingway or Fitzgerald?

Michael Dirda: How about Faulkner? Or Hammett?

Washington, DC: When I was browsing around on the Random House site the other day, I came across a section devoted to Dorothy Dunnett and her Lymond Chronicles. Her fans seemed rabidly enthusiastic about her writings - I must say I'm intrigued. However, never having heard of her - I was wondering about your impression of her writing?

Michael Dirda: My late friend Reid Beddow loved these books--and he also loved the Aubrey-Maturin books and Capt. Horatio Hornblower, so I suspect they are first-rate. Word always was they were the best historical novels of our time--at least until Patrick O'Brian came along. But, alas, I haven't read any. I'd give her a try though.

Arlington, VA: To Paris, France:
Pamper the tounges in your mind with Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude" -- a lavish language banquet of unending courses.

Michael Dirda: Yes, even in translation. I discovered the book by accident one day in 1973 on a remainder table at Cornell U. Picked up the novel, read the first sentence which I've never forgotten: Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice. Bought the book. Raved about it. Nobody would believe me when I said it was a masterpiece. And this at a university.

Bethesda, Maryland: I have read several of Faulkner's novels, but in random order and often years apart. Isn't there a logical order in which at least some of the novels should be read for maximum impact? Also, where do you think Walker Percy rates with the critics? The Moviegoer was greeted with adulation, but I sense a cooling of critical ardor, culminating in his being referred to as a "Catholic novelist," which has a whiff of disparagement about it. Should-is Evelyn Waugh dismissed as a "Catholic novelist?"

Michael Dirda: Try Malcolm Cowley's famous Viking Portable to get a sense of Faulkner's chronology. Or consult some standard works (Minter, Brooks). Percy seems to be in limbo, and I suspect that only the moviegoer will survive--though my friends in southern literature revere it. Waugh would welcome being described as a Catholic novelist--even though he is arguably Britain's greatest novelist since, oh, Lawrence and Ford.

Englewood NJ: You once mentioned "Ulysees" as one of your favorite poems. I enjoy it very much too. How do you consider the way Ulysees is portrayed in the poem? Is he an egoist that denies his family? Or is he a man plagued with intense restlessness and curiosity?

Michael Dirda: I've always seen him as the latter, assuming the portrait was based largely on that found in Dante, where Ulysses is the type of the restless wanderer, even sailing out of the known seas into death.

Washington, DC: How would you rate Oprah's book discussions? And her choices?

Michael Dirda: I'm the only person in America who's never seen Oprah.

Washington, DC: Vikran Seth and Michael Ondaatje are both reading on the same night -Thursday, May 27.
Where's a girl to go?
I am a huge fan of one of these guys but in the interest of bias, I'll not say which one.

Michael Dirda: Seth is better looking.

Annapolis, MD: What are some of your all-time favorite beach books? I'm headed to the coast this weekend and taking Camus' "The Stranger" and Peter Benchley's "The Deep." I was planning on bringing along "Hannibal" but it won't be out until June, so I have an empty spot in the line-up. Any suggestions? I'm open to anything.

Michael Dirda: Something hot? Something watery? Something sandy? How about Raymond Chandler's Farewell My Lovely; Master and Commander, the first Aubrey-Maturin volume, by Patrick O'BRian; and Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. All are wonderful books.

Arlington, VA: Can you recommend a particular literary reference book for a serious reader, but one with limited enthusiasm for literary theory? I have a copy of the Oxford Guide to English Literature, edited by Margaret Drabble, which contains descriptions of notable writers, books and literary ideas and movements, but it is not very comprehensive, and as the title indicates, primarily centered on England, although not exclusively so. I'm looking for a wider-ranging reference book. Any ideas? Thanks.

Michael Dirda: Try Martin Seymour-Smith's New World Guide to Modern Literature. Covers world literature, with pizzazz and eccentricity. Among older books: William Rose Benet's Reader's Companion to Literature is a classic. Also there's a volume from Merriam Webster that's first-rate. Can't remember exact title.

Takoma Park, MD: Michael, I have a non-fiction question for you. Why oh why is it that every non-fiction hc book on the NYT list is either a self-help or diet book? There are few decent reads on the current top 25 - Ray Suarez's tome on suburban migration and Tuesdays with Morrie come to mind - but two books on day trading and a few more on Clinton?

As once famous non-fiction author once put it, "What is to be done?"

Michael Dirda: Actually Lenin was quoting the novelist Chernyshevsky, who titled one of his novels What is to Be Done?
Pay no attention to the best seller list. You can't compete with lemming buying. Go to a bookstore and look for some of the nonfiction people I mentioned in an earlier response. Read the classics.

Catonsville, MD: I'm curious about your opinion of James Salter. Master stylist or poor-man's Hemingway?

I rank "A Sport and a Pastime" as my favorite "love" story. Can you suggest any other such works?

Michael Dirda: I guess you didn't see the last graf of my review of Seth's Equal Music, where I mention Sport along with Lolita and Possession as my three favorite modern love stories. I think Salter is a master stylist, owner of a beautiful prose style that is more poetic, when it needs to be, than Hemingway's.

Arlington, VA: You navigate seamlessly between the drug-store pulp stacks and the ivory tower. Must be the glasses.

Michael Dirda: You mean the $5 reading glasses that they sell in the racks by the checkout? In truth, I like good books, no matter what their provenance. Sometimes you want to read Sartre and sometimes you want to read Spillane.

Rockville, MD: The Modern Library 100 Best non-fiction is out. You can find it on the Random House Web Site. The top ten are:
The Education of Henry Adams -Adams-
Varieties of Religious Experience -James-
Up from Slavery -Washington-
A Room of One's Own -Woolf-
Silent Spring -Carson
Selected Essays -T S Eliot-
The Double Helex -Watson-
Speak, Memory -Nabokov-
The American Language -Mencken-
and The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money -Keynes-

Michael Dirda: No doubt, I'll be hearing more about this list than I care to. But thanks for posting the top 10. Good books, but with a few exceptions, not the ones I love most.

Washington DC: What do you think of Nabokov as a short story writer? For my part, I think he's stronger in his novels, unlike, say, Hemingway, whose short stories I admire tremendously. Your thoughts?

Michael Dirda: I agree. Though I've never forgotten The VAne Sisters, with its trick, or the opening sentence of Spring in Fialta: Spring in Fialta is cloudy and gray.

washingtonpost.com: For those who want to see the list of the "Top" 100 Non-Fiction books, it's available at http://www.randomhouse.com/modernlibrary/100best/list.html. But look at it after the chat.

Washington, D.C.: All the hoopla surrounding the Star Wars movies had me thinking about trilogies, and I thought I would ask you what trilogy in literature you think is the best? I think many people might pick Dante, but my sentimental choice would be for John Dos Passos's U.S.A. trilogy. So, two questions: what do you think of Dos Passos and what trilogy do you like the best?

Michael Dirda: Sadly, I missed reading Dos Passos in my hot youth and fear I will never read him now. TRilogies? I'm very fond of Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast sequence--baroque language, grotesque characters--as well as Philip Pullman's Dark Material trilogy (onlyh the first two books out so far: The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife). I still admire Tolkien too.

Washington, DC: I am disappointed in your -lack of - response to my Seth vs.Ondaatje question. I am an agressive reader of new fiction and I enjoy attending local readings, but have to budget my time. While I am badly in need of a haircut, I would choose to postpone -as I see from your photo, you do too- for the chance to see either Seth or Ondaatje?
What would you recommend?

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. I have been meaning to change that picture. I thought The ENglish Patient was a wonderful book; I thought An Equal Music was sentimental--and couldn't decide whether I liked the way it tugged at my heartstrings or not. I'd go to Ondaatje.

Springfield, Virginia: Thank you for being willing to answer readers' questions. I think it is very generous of you. I have three related quesitons. Do you think American readers will be interested in fictional stories that take place in non-European countries, with characters whose values and way of life are different from those of mainstream Americans. Is it difficult to identify with characters whose cultures, traditions and conflicts are inherently foreign to us? Don't you think writing fictions based on other cultures requires a lot of background knowledge and exceptionally rich vocabulary? If my quesitons are simplistic, please excuse me; I am not a writer, but like reading.

Michael Dirda: Americans are interested in fiction from other parts of the world. Witness the success of--to name only INdian writers--Rushdie, Seth, and Arundhati Roy. One reason we read fiction is to learn about alien worlds. I suppose that the best accounts of foreign places come from people who live there--though visitng writers often see things the natives don't.

washington, d.c.: Speaking of trilogies: What about The Border Trilogy? I know you've described "All the Pretty Horses" as one of the towering achievements of 1990s fiction, and I wholeheartedly agree. What about the trilogy as a whole?

Michael Dirda: I reviewed the crossing and cities of the plain and found each a little more disappointing than the previous. Pretty Horses is masterly and almost completely successful; crossing gets over philosophical in a teachings of don juan way; cities verges on trite situations and windy speculation. but mccarthy is always an amazing writer and all his books ar worth reading for the language--when he's on, he's the best. Blood Meridian is, as I've said, one of the dozen great american novels of the past 50 years.

Cincinnati, OH: Michael, I admire your ability to quote from work you love. Do you remember them naturally, or do you work at committing them to memory?

Michael Dirda: Mostly I just remember them naturally. I did spend a lot of my adolscence walking to high school and on those half hour treks would try to memorize poems to pass the time. Best spent half hours of my life.

Upper Northwest: Literary Magazines: dead, or still a viable resource for discovering young fiction talent? Once upon a time, talent like Fitzgerald, Dos Passos and Mencken wrote for popular magazines, and since that never looks likely to happen again, I wonder if I should subscribe to any particular lit mag. Favorites?

Michael Dirda: Except for a few slicks--New Yorker, harper's etc.--I don't think you can make your name as a fiction writer through magazine work. There are lots of small magazines and literary quarterlies and they will allow you to see your work in print. But how many of these do you read?
I'd go to the newstand or libary and look around. I enjoy Paris Review, for instance, but it tends to focus on more established talents. On the other hand, I tend to read literary news in mags and reserve myh fiction reading for books.

Washington, DC: I agree with your statement about One Hundred Years of Solitude having one of the best opening lines. The closing line was also wonderful.

I noticed you mentioned something about Vikram Seth. I have enjoyed two of his books--The Golden Gate, written entirely in verse, and A Suitable Boy -which is also suitable for building up strength, esp. in hardback-. Has he written any other books and-or are any scheduled to be published soon?

Michael Dirda: His latest is just out: An EQual Music. Wonderful descriptions of music-making. Very touching and affecting love story. But I thought it a bit sentimental and manipulative. But others have seen it as a masterpiece.

Washington, DC: To Springfield, VA. You won't go wrong with a lot of African Fiction, either. Chinua Achebe captured the mind of this white episcopalian male several years ago.

Michael Dirda: Yes, I also like Amos Tutuola's word-mad The Palm Wine Drinkard and BEn Okri's phantasmagoric The FAmished Road.

Washington, DC: Speaking of trilogies, George Lucas has always seemed to be on the first step of a staircase looking up 101 stories to Ursula K. LeGuin and her "Earthsea" opus.

Michael Dirda: Earthsea is, of course, now a tetralogy--though Tehanu differs in tone from the earlier three books. Since both Le Guin and Lucas are interested in Jungian notions about self-developement, there's no surprise that their work is similar.

DC: I have recently enjoyed Tony Horwitz' Confederates in the Attic and Timothy Egan's Lasso the Wind. Each is a mix of travel-history-sociology of the south and west, respectively. I really appreciated the mix of travel, history and sociology and was wondering if you can recommend some similar books, perhaps about Texas or the Midwest or the Northeast. Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Paul Horgan's classic on the Rio Grande comes to mind for Texas. Drawing a blank on the others.

Bethesda, MD: Mr. Dirda

Yesterday I discovered a Web site for the International Lawrence Durrell Society, which, apparently, is run by Dr. Anna Lillios, a member of the faculty at the University of Central Florida where you are now enjoying a temporary faculty position. Coincidence aside, I would be interested in your opinion of Durrell, particularly his Alexandria Quartet, and your sense of his impact on late 20th Century fiction. Do you believe, as many seem to do, that he should have a more central place in the literary canon? Thank you.

Michael Dirda: I'm not at UCF yet--not until this August. Was only there for a week orientation. I'm sure that Durrell is currently underrated. As you will see in a review coming out next week, Rita Dove--no less--counts the Durrell quartet a major influence on her life and work.

Rockville, MD: I was recently rereading some Andre Dubus -may his soul rest in peace- and noticed he would often try to write from a feminine character's perspective. I was hard pressed to think of any women writers who wrote from the masculine view. Any suggestions?

Michael Dirda: Lots of mystery writers: Dorothy Sayers, Agatha Christie, Margery Allingham, Ruth Rendell.

Washington, DC: What has been the most overlooked book this past prize season?

Michael Dirda: Have no idea. In fact, I wish people would move beyond the current-book obsession and go back and read more of the classics from the past. Because of my job, I keep my eye on contemporary publishing, but if I had my druthers I'd probably read almost nothing more recent than 1948. This may, of course, be a sign of creeping middle age. I yearn to read all of Ivy Compton-Burnett and reread The Tale of Genji.

Bowie, MD: In your opinion, where does Shel Silverstein fit into the 20th Century literary canon? He was so much more than just a poet or -gag!- a children's author.

Michael Dirda: I'm afraid his place is in children's literature, where he was an important influence as a witty and often touching poet. But I don't believe he had or s any influence on literature for adults. Still, to have written The GIving Tree is nothing to laugh at. In fact, it is a book guaranteed to make a grownup cry.

Arlington, VA: Barbara Gowdy -arguably the Diane Arbus of fiction- has a new book, "The White Bone." Apparently she does for elephants what "Watership Down" did for rabbits. What have you heard about it?

Michael Dirda: Never read Gowdy, but if she really is the Diane ARbus of fiction, I obviously want to.

Washington, DC: As no one in Hollywood has an original idea, new novels are increasingly THE source for movies. I understand that Mona Simpson's "Anywhere But Here" a 400 page plus drama has been given the 2 hours and 18 minute treatment. Hmmm.

What do you think of this practice?
What books have you read lately that might make an excellent film. I'm reading Elizabeth Strout's "Isabel and Amy" and its all I can do not to cast it immediately.

Michael Dirda: Usually, second-rate books make first-rate movies--at least this was true until SEnse and Sensiblity. If a movie gets a viewer to read the original novel, then I'm for the practice. But I fear many young people figure that the picture version is far better than the word version. Which is almost never the case. But Hollywood has always stolen from fiction--it needs to, since apparently the motion picture industry has never been noted for its original imagination.

Washington D.C.: Wouldn't you have to agree that in order for us to return to the classics, a "current book obsession" is very necessary?

Don't mean to be salty but you're sounding a bit of a fuddy-duddy.

Michael Dirda: Didn't mean to sound so f-d-ish. I suppose I yearn for the old because I'm surrounded by the new. I most certainly believe that one needs to promote and be part of the literature of one's own time. But we're talking here about personal taste. My view is that too many readers only read the contemporary. Talk to writing students in grad school and they all know the same handful of writers--usually their teachers and his or her friends. I'm a great advocate for reading the world's literature and reading in every period. Also, I think you should read the best books first or you may not have a chance to read them at all. (That's from Thoreau, by the way.) I'd rather read Jane Austen than Mona Simpson. That's just me.

Mt. Rainier MD: How do you feel about Kingsolver's "Poisonwood Bible"? I thought it was powerful in a slowly building up way, probably one of the few on the bestseller list that deserves to be there.

Michael Dirda: Again, a book I haven't read. A reviewer reads what he writes about, but usually ends up with a pile of books he'd like to read slowly taking over his bedroom. Kingsolver probably belongs on that pile, though I did read a savage critique of her work by Lee Siegel in The New Republic.
Well, time's up for this week. Talk to you next time. Keep reading.