Dirda on Books – Transcript Michael Dirda Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 3, 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: Hello, sorry to have had to change my regular time this week and hope it wasn't too inconvenient for people. Been a busy time. At any event, welcome to Dirda on Books, and on to the questions.

englewood, NJ: What do you think of "Daniel Deronda"? I find it very humorless and ponderous, especially the sections involving Deronda. However, I found Gwendolyn's story to be more moving -especially at the beginning of the novel-. I was very disappointed with it because I thought "Middlemarch" was splendid.

Michael Dirda: I love Middlemarch--I'd probably choose it or Vanity Fair as the great VIctorian novel--though I had to start it two or three times before I found the book's rhythm. Alas, have never read Deronda, though I know from friends that it is, as you describe it, two kinds of book.

Fairfax, VA: I'd like to increase my appreciation of poetry, and I found "Making Your Own Days" to be helpful. Do you have any other suggestions for books like this, or should I just read more poetry?

Also, have you ever read a poet named Albert Goldbarth?

Michael Dirda: There's been a spate of books by poets on how poetry is written--by Mary Kinzie and Robert Pinsky, among others--but I suspect you should just read poetry. I'm a great believer in reading Collected Works, so if you like Stevens or Auden or Bishop or Wilbur, I'd read them in depth. I've always belived it better to know one or two writers, or books, well, than to know a lot of them superficially. I"ve read Goldbarth and find him very amusing, though I'm not a particular fan.

washington, dc: I believe you have mentioned William Gass in your chats a few times. Any recommendations on books to start with by him?

Michael Dirda: Yes, you should probably read some of his essays first--I'd start with the early ones in Fiction and the Figures of Life. Just the titles are irresistible: In terms of the toenail; The Bingo Game at the Foot of the Cross. Then I'd read either On Being Blue--his long prose poem about the color blue, in all its manifestations; or the short stories in In the Heart of the Heart of the Country. A good sexy read is his story, with illustrations, Willie Master's Lonesome Wife. Save The Tunnel and the more philosophical essays for later.

College Park, MD: A number of years ago, I had the pleasure of hearing you speak at a Washington Post book lunch; one of the most memorable things you said was that you enjoyed and recommended experiencing new, young authors.
As I have read transcripts of your online chats and your column in the Post, I notice that your view has changed in that you prefer returning to established writers. Have you noticed a change in your own literary tastes, or do you attribute your current preference to the inferior quality of recent writing. By the way, I cannot conclude without recommending a wonderful novel I just happened upon--Man of the Hour by Peter Blauner. I'd love to know your reaction to it in a future online chat or in a review.

Michael Dirda: A thoughtful question, with commentary that instills some guilt. I still believe that it's important to read new writers, to encourage them and their readers, but I have, alas, grown older and found myself drawn increasingly to classics, to the writers I loved when young, and to subjects that have interested me for a long time. I do review new authors, but should make more of an effort. But since there are so many writers who are famous yet new to me, I still think I'm writing about new people when I review, say, Andrew Holleran.

Washington: How do you think the works discussed in For The Love of Books might have been different if the editors had selected a few non-Anglo-Saxon authors to discuss their favorite works?

Michael Dirda: I'm sure it would have been quite a different book, but I'm not certain if you mean non-Americans or non-Anglo-Saxon. Shwartz does include, say, Rita Dove; but not, say, Banana Yashimoto. It was his book too, and there was plenty in it to like, even if it's not the one you or I would have compiled.

Philadelphia, PA: I saw that the book that you said you had contributed a couple of articles for, "Mystery and Suspense Writers", won an Edgar award. Congratulations! Have you written for other collections like this?

P.S. I almost missed your column this week because for some reason it didn't get online. Fortunately, I was able to get a hard copy.

Michael Dirda: I wrote about John Dickson Carr and Edmund Crispin for the book you mention. In the past, I contributed to similar volumes on fantasy and supernatural writers: I wrote essays on Balzac, Maupassant, Merimee, Jack Vance and the European tradition in horror fiction.

Washington, DC: Thank you for your informative and entertaining chats which so nicely augment your columns !

I saw a copy of the new translation of Stendhal's "Charterhouse of Parma," which you recently mentioned was forthcoming and wondered if you have read it and would recommend it.

Michael Dirda: I keep meaning to write about Richard Howard's new translation of this novel, one of my favorite's. I'm sure it's better than Scott Moncrieff's, which simply doesn't work in English. So, I'd buy the book, but expect to see something by me on it later this summer.

Arlington, VA: I have a short attention span and would like to read some recent quality fiction this summer. If I get into a book, I can stay up all night with it, but more often than not, I'm bored with the been-there, done-that plot devices that I seem to continually stummble across. Give me some suggestions for summer reading, please, esp. short story anthologies if you can recommend any.

Michael Dirda: A.S. Byatt recently edited The Oxford Book of English Stories; John Updike compiled a similar book on the greatest American short stories of the century; and Richard Ford has done an anthology of long AMerican stories. THese should keep you busy. My favorite short story anthology, however, is out of print: It's The Anchor Book of STories, chosen by Randall Jarrell, with a brilliant essay as preface. It turns up regularly in second hand shops and is well worth looking for.

alexandria, va: If I moderately enjoy-appreciate E. Nesbitt what other, more obscure, children's authors from the Victorian-Edwardian era shoudl I seek out?

Michael Dirda: You might look for a book by Roger Lancelyn Green called Tellers of Tales--it's a survey of the English tradition in children's books, from the Victorians to the 1950s, and much of its central focus is on the period following E. Nesbit. If you like Nesbit, you should try her American follower, Edward Eager, best known for Half Magic and its sequels.

Arlington, VA: Hi Michael. I'm interested in reading biographies of Faulkner, Woolf, and Conrad. Any suggestions? Thanks!

Michael Dirda: Faulkner--David Minter's is probably your best best, the Blotner being monstrously long and over-detailed.
Woolf--probably Quentin Bell's, though there have been a couple of recent revisions. Frankly, I'd read her diaries and letters instead.
Conrad--Ian Watt wrote a critical/biographical book on Conrad that's first rate; he died before he could do the second volume. There's a fat life by Frederick Karl. But no life has established itself as definitive.

Austin, Texas: Any thoughts on David Foster Wallace?

Michael Dirda: Yes, I should have reviewed Infinite Jest and didn't, because I happened turn to a section about drugs and as I have personal reasons for hating drugs was put off the book. To my chagrin. I hope to review his next big book, though. He has obviously established himself as the current equivalent of Pynchon and DeLillo, who are the writers of my generation (though I'm younger than both).

Winston-Salem, NC: Viking Portables and Anchor pbks ARE great. Have you seen the Looking Glass Library series of children's books by Random House in the 60s and 70s I think. Edward Gorey is listed as one of the editors and did a number of the cover illustrations.

An aside on McPhee from last week's chat, Levels of the Game is a nice book about race even it purports to be about tennis.

Michael Dirda: Along with the Viking Portables and the Anchor paperbacks, I have also collected, in a desultory fashion, the Looking Glass Library. Besides Gorey, I think Auden--another hero--was involved in the series. The books are pretty to look at, but they were never very well made and often tend to fall apart if one reads them too vigorously. I also regret that certain titles--e.g. the Nesbits and the Baums--use new artists for the illustrations rather than the canonical pictures by, I think, Millar and Denslow.

washington, dc: Having just finished LOOK HOMEWARD, ANGEL, by Thomas Wolfe, I wanted to get your thoughts on the overtly racist content of the book. I know it's regarded as a classic, at least a minor one, but I think its vicious treatment of African Americans and Jews cancels out in large part cancels out its value. Do you think that authors can be excused for their views and statements with the qualifier that they were a product of the times, or do you rather feel that a great artist should be able to rise above his-her times to be more enlightened-enlightening? How does Wolfe fare generally in this debate. Thanks.

Michael Dirda: I've never read Look Homeward--another shameful confesssion--but you raise an interesting and complex matter. Consider the cases of Celine and Eliot. Celine is a brilliant innovative writer--he made French sound the way it is spoken on the street--but he was a vicious anti-semite. I know, for instance, that Phillip Lopate--Jewish--loved Death on the Installment Plan and Jounrey to the End of Night and was able, with some difficulty, to work around the man's awful prejudices. Eliot's pejorative references to the Jews are fewer, but equally controversial. I must say I find it easier to forgive Eliot, who publicly regretted his prejudices, but then I'm not Jewish. I do think one must try to understand a work against its period and in context; but a work's USEFULNESS to a later generation will often depend on the way it approaches sensitive issues of race, gender, etc. The greatest works, like Othello and The Merchant of Venice, are clearly open to multiple interpretations because they may present what seem like stereotypes but in fact manage to invest the characters with such complexity and depth that one has to respond to them as human beings.

Fort Worth, Texas: What's your favorite Dickens novel, and why?

Michael Dirda: Bleak House--love the language, most of the characters, the melodramatic plot. Every time I read DIckens he astonishes me with his sentences. He is the Shakespeare of the novel, as someone--Chesteron? GIssing?--once said.

Rockville, MD: I know it's just idle speculation, but that's just like day dreaming. Anyway, of current fiction writers, whom do you think will still be read in 100 years.

Michael Dirda: Impossible to know. Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow and Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian seem like masterpieces to me that will last--they interpret the American experience in the way that great novels should. With ambition, length and extravagance.

Washington, DC: Your advice about just reading the poetry makes sense to me, except, I can't ever figure out what the heck Wallace Stevens is talking about. Am I thinking too hard?

Also, what's a good way to pick a translation of a classic novel? -- Thanks

Michael Dirda: Just read Stevens for the sound and beauty of his language, and let the sense be something you think about when the mood strikes you. "What would we be without the sexual myth, the human revery or poem of death? Life consists of propositions about life. . ."
Picking a translation--ask a librarian or teacher, or check out the date. Older translations are sometimes stilted or period pieces. Many exceptions to this of course. Read the jacket blurbs. Check with friends. But don't put off reading a great book because you're unsure about its translation.

Washington, DC: I stumbled across and bought a book titled "You've Gotta Read This" in which Contemporary Authors write introductions to favorite short stories. I've enjoyed it a lot--the intros as well as the stories themselves, some of which are familiar and some new to me.

Michael Dirda: Don't know this book--sounds the sort of book I enjoy too.

washington dc: are there any magazines you think are a great read?

Michael Dirda: I like the Times Literary Supplement, The American Scholar, The Spectator, the London Review of Books, the New Criterion, Lingua Franca. I don't read many general interest magazines--harper's, the new Yorker--because I just don't have time. I'd pick magazines that publish the shorter workk of writers you enjoy reading in hard cover.

Rockville, MD: What's your favorite Hitchcock film? -No need to answer why-

Michael Dirda: Hard call--either The 39 Steps or The Birds. But he's one of my favorite filmmakers.

Ramallah, Palestine: I loved the book "Great books" by David Denby, and "Sophies world", what are some other books i might enjoy?

Michael Dirda: Hmm, this is a broad question. If you want guides to reading--which these books are--you might try Martin Seymour-Smith's Guide to Modern World LIterature, Clifton Fadiman's The Lifetime Reading Plan, or this book I recently reviewed by Shwartz, For the Love of Reading. Also, Alberto Manguel's The Hisotry of Reading.

Silver Spring, MD: A couple of weeks ago Lawrence Durrell's Alexandria Quartet was discussed. I certainly admired his descriptive talents when I read it eons ago. Then I discovered his younger brother Gerald's writings about his boyhood and collecting animals. He added a sense of humor to the mix. Have you ever read any of his books?

Michael Dirda: I've read a little of Gerald and do like his style. Both Durrell's deserve some rediscovery by current readers.

Washington,DC: In light of Oprah and her book club, which celebrity would you imagine has the same taste in books as you?

Michael Dirda: Hmmm. Who's a celebrity? Harold Bloom and I share an admiration for John Crowley, as well as numerous other writers, but I'm not sure being a famous professor makes you a celebrity. I don't watch much tv, so I don't really know about that world. I would like to think I have something of the same sense of humor as the Monty Python group.

Rockville, MD: Shoot, I was betting that you would answer Strangers on A Train for best Hitchcock film. By the way, 39 Steps was Truffaut.

Michael Dirda: No, The 39 Steps was Hitchcock, starred Robert Donat. I also like Strangers on a Train, but then I like Patricia Highsmith's Ripley novels too.

Washington, D.C. : Michael,

I really liked Alan Lightman's Einstein Dreams, published a few years ago. Has he done anything else recently that's worth noting?

Michael Dirda: I think there was a subsequent book, but I can't remember its title. Check with your bookstore or librarian. He's also written some nonfiction.

Burke, VA: I enjoyed the first two volumes of a planned four volume biography of President Lyndon Baines Johnson written by Robert Caro. Vol. 1 came out in 1982, and vol. 2 about 1991. Any word or information as to when Vol. 3 will come out?

Sam Conner
Burke, VA

Michael Dirda: Caro is famously slow, and I'd also head vague rumors--perhaps no more than that--that he might be giving up on the project. But don't take this as gospel truth.

Vienna, VA: The fan of E. Nesbit might try Penelope Farmer's books about magic and time travel. The styles are very different but the "feel" of the books is the same.

Michael Dirda: There's also Allison Utley's A Traveller in Time.

washington, dc: No question today, Michael. Just wanted to say that your column last Sunday was wonderful. I'm sure it brought back memories in every reader who was once inspired by a teacher to discover great literature. I hope my son finds a Delmar Wright in his educational life, as I did.

Michael Dirda: That column--about my 8th grade English teacher--elicited a lot of comment, so I must have struck a chord. Best of all, I received an e-mail from Mr. Wright himself. I've asked him to bring me up to date on his past 35 or so years. I haven't heard back yet, since he only wrote this morning.

Washington DC: I'm a tremendous fan of innovative, risk-taking novelists--not to limit my choices, but two of my favorites are Delillo and Rick Moody. But I am particularly interested in first novels, as I have a first novel of my own making the rounds in New York. Are there any recent first novels that you would particularly recommend?

Michael Dirda: None comes immediatly to mind, but I would suggest looking at some innovative writers from other countries: Do you know Julian Rios's Larva; Georges Perec's A Void and Life a Users Manual; Italo Calvino's The Castle of Crossed Destinies and If on a winter's night a traveler; and many othres. These are famous people, but not as well known as they deserve to be. You might also look out for the undervalued Harry Mathews.

Michael Dirda: Well, that's all folks for this week. I'll be back at my regular time next Wednesday at 2 pm. Until then, keep reading!