here's a confession:

So.  I have this literary crush on Jonathan Franzen.  Whom I’ve actually never read [yet].  I’ve heard him speak, though, and have perused several interviews with him, most recent of which was his ‘The Art of Fiction’ interview in the current Paris Review (which I recommend), and, well, yes, I’ve a literary crush because I admire a man who’s well-read and can speak articulately about these books which he has read.  (I think I started dismantling at the point he started talking about Proust and analysing Joyce and explaining why Beckett is preferred over Joyce.)  Plus, there’s something respectable about someone being articulate in and of itself.

I didn’t buy Freedom; I admit the sheer girth of that novel is off-putting; but, after initially picking up his collection of essays, I did spy The Corrections on the table of ‘buy one get one 50% off’ at Borders, with Jeanette Walls’ The Glass Castle in near proximity — a suitable arrangement, really, because I’d originally walked into Borders wanting to pick up The Corrections, anyway, and hadn’t seen it on the shelf under the weighty row of Freedom copies.

To be perfectly honest, I have an instinctive block against American authors, especially American male authors, an oddity because the greater majority of my favourite European/Asian authors are male.  I think part of it has to do with my mental correlation with American male fiction as being very ‘macho’ or too eccentric/quirky, whereas those of the European tradition tend to be unafraid to dismantle the human condition or delve into the psyche and those of the Asian tradition have mastered the art of the surreal.  I’m fully aware that I’m probably sitting here ‘typecasting’ authors based on their point of origin, but literature from different parts of the world is obviously going to be different and follow varied traditions — and ‘American literature,’ in general, has never held much appeal to me.

BUT, I have been trying to read past that and expand the general boundaries of my reading tastes.  I’ve discovered a like for American female novelists, number one of whom is Nicole Krauss, and I’ve also discovered that I quite enjoy Janet Fitch, something I didn’t expect, and one of my reading goals for 2011 is to read more outside my comfort zone!

there's something about these books that really ought to be read during the day ...

… that manifests a desire to be read after midnight once everyone else is asleep.

Battle Royale, now that I’m roughly a third into it, is nauseating, as one would expect, not so much for blood or gore but for the story concept of sending middle school students into an arena to kill each other, all in attempts to control the population.  (Even now, I wonder how The Hunger Games managed not to be so sickening.)  As far as writing goes, it’s neither brilliant nor terrible prose; it’s sparsely and matter-of-factly written; and it works because a more elaborate or heavy-handed prose style would detract from the other values of the book, particularly as a portrait of humanity’s instinct to survive.  If Battle Royale is anything, it’s an excellent study of the human condition in an oppressed and conformative society (arguably allegorical to Japanese society and educational system), and the years have alienated me enough from the film* that I can appreciate the book fully for its own merit instead of drawing comparisons in my head.

Now.  If only I would read this during the day and not after midnight becase I literally had to put a thirty-minute buffer of You Are Beautiful between reading Battle Royale and going to sleep in attempts to keep the bloody nightmares at bay.  Lucky for me, however, I was so exhausted that my dreams are but hazy feelings that won’t be retrieved from the peripheries of my memories.

(*As far as I remember, the film was good, though I will not be watching it again any time soon to confirm my dusty memories.)

*O*

These arrive Stateside on 2010 November 24.  I’m peeing my pants in the corner over here as my brain explodes from a limitation of 10 pages in which to discuss Penguin Books and book design.  Seriously?  Tomes could be written about Penguin Books and book design.

[img from creative review.]

everywhere, anywhere, nowhere: book talk.

• Roland Barthes’ Mourning Diary is written in snippets of thoughts rarely extending more than a few lines each, and it’s a small volume, stocky and sturdy, by looks deceptive because it’s harder to get through than some novels.  Glimpsing into someone’s grief is no easy feat, and I’ve found that this is a book I keep by my Mac and dip into every once in a while when I find my senses becoming dull, absorbing only a few pages at a time before setting it aside again.
• One of my housemates is an exchange student from Japan, and I noticed on Friday night that she had Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore on her shelf.  Naturally, I had to ask if she’d read him and if she’d read his new novel, and she replied that, yes, she had, all three volumes of it.  The only response I could offer to that was a sigh of envy; 1Q84 doesn’t reach Stateside in English translation until fall 2012; and Murakami Haruki is one of the authors for whom I desire to learn Japanese.
• Late last week, I broke into my shiny new copy of Demons but am wondering if I should put this one (and other currently readings) on pause for now and focus solely on my current reread of Anna Karenina.  Maybe instead of tackling Proust over the holidays, I’ll aim for Demons and The Brothers Karamazov … all the while sipping heavenly espresso and chowing down meatball subs in San Francisco?  Or pizza slices in Manhattan?  Ought I hoard hopes for potential jaunts to more homey corners of the world this holiday season?

nicole krauss, one of my favourite contemporary authors.

Why does one begin to write? Because she feels misunderstood, I guess. Because it never comes out clearly enough when she tries to speak. Because she wants to rephrase the world, to take it in and give it back again differently, so that everything is used and nothing is lost. Because it’s something to do to pass the time until she is old enough to experience the things she writes about.

- Nicole Krauss

She’s going to be at Central Library next Tuesday.  I’m excited, but that goes without saying.