The Summer of Magical Reading

Who can remember what books they read during the nineties? Well, apparently, Chazz and Bill can, and it's worth the jump to glimpse their lists. . .

Meanwhile, I am struggling just to remember what I read this summer. My god. So here's a short-list with some admittedly scattered commentary.

1.) Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek. First a confession. I am in love with Annie Dillard. Another confession--I haven't finished the damn book. I'm stranded somewhere toward the end without wind. Dead in the water, as they say. I mean the book won the Pulitzer in nonfiction when it appeared in 1974, for christ's sake. You'd think I could just umph it out to the end. And it's not that I have not enjoyed what I have read. Brilliant stuff. I guess I wanted more Dillard than she gives. But there I am asking for a book that Pilgrim isn't. What it is, though, is a lyrical meditation on place and her focus pans wide, cosmic wide, and returns to the micro/molecular level. Nothing gets by her. The way she connects topics thematically is intoxicating, really. Allow me to gush on that point. Indulge me. Now I have to indulge Dillard for the remaining pages. Surely I will write more when the end arrives.

2.) David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again floored me. Speaking of indulgent, by the way. My god. Wallace demands that you indulge him in this collection of essays what with the footnotes stacked ten deep per page--but they are worth the effort. As Matt pointed out a while back, Wallace's footnotes are like scenic byways through the narrative. Sometimes I had to ask whether or not the footnotes were more compelling than the "surface" narrative, or if one could survive without the other. I am here to tell you they are co-dependent. Reading his essays without reading the footnotes would be like watching a movie on mute.

Be warned, however, you must be a patient reader. Wallace isn't for everyone. Clearly the highlight in the collection is the title essay of some 120+ pages. The supposedly fun thing Wallace will never do again is go on a Seven Night Cruise (7NC) on a megaship. Following Wallace around on the cruise ship for so many pages is a delight, I think, and reminds one that much can be gleaned from the seeming banalities of life.

3.) The Best American Essays 2005. Ed. Susan Orlean. A solid collection of essays this past year. One of the best is "Consider the Lobster" written by our friend from # 2 (above). Others are quieter if less-quirky, but no less compelling. Edward Hoagland's "Small Silences" is a meditative piece on the nature of place and what a childhood haunt can mean years later when it is gone, say, and replaced with a highrise or gas-station. I think we all have places like this. For me, it was a certain bend in Soda Creek in Soda Springs, Idaho, just off the backside of Mineral Heights. Hoagland revisits his own places (which occur in time and space and memory), and in doing so, asks that we revisit our own, and that ultimately, we have much to learn in the natural world. And this latter point, our learning potential, Hoagland seems to argue, is threatened by disappearing "natural spaces."

Other essays come to mind. Jon Franzen is always good for a knock-out essay. His piece, "The Comfort Zone" is an amazing rumination on his childhood obsession with The Peanuts comics. Franzen came to love Charlie Brown & Co. as our country was being torn apart by the Vietnam war. Brilliant piece. Other highlights include works by Ted Kooser (current poet laureate), Brian Doyle, Oliver Sacks, et al.

4.) I just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking, her literary memoir recounting the year her husband, the writer John Gregory Dunne, died of a heart attack at their dining room table, and her daughter's illness through the book. And I'm not giving away anything by saying this, but the fact that her daughter in the weeks after the book was printed adds a haunting layer to the book. Aside from the emotional factors, the book won the National Book Award for nonfiction for its language, for Didion's measured, spare prose. Truthfully, I dislike writers like Didion who make writing appear easy, as if the words just appeared on the page, pulled from the thin air without fuss or second-thoughts. Like she wrote the damn thing one night and turned it in to her editor.

But Didion is a scion in the literary scene and has been since she established herself in the 1960s. I have friends who tire of such heavy-weights in the Old Guard (e.g. John Updike, Oates, Franzen, Doctorow, and Didion). Some of these friends argue--and often convincingly--that the Old Guard is inclusive, nepotistic, incestuous, and finally self-serving. The awards to be given are given to each other. I don't have a response to this, other than to say there will always be an Old Guard, but when I see maddeningly young writers like David Foster Wallace, Anthony Doerr, Steve Almond, and Lan Samantha Chang rise up, I take heart. Guards change. And the tradition moves forward. In the meantime I read work like The Year of Magical Thinking because, at the very least, there might be something to learn there. And because it is the human experience on paper. Why else does one read?

5.) Have just picked up David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. So far so good. I won't say much here until I have finished it.

6.) Also reading William Kittredge's Who Owns the West? This is classic Kittredge. Smart, gruff, polemical. And his western land-ethics are doled out in clean hard-knuckled prose. This reading is good for the soul. It's like fiber for the diet. More when I finish it. If you haven't read Kittredge, I suggest beginning with Hole in the Sky, his memoir. It's stunning for its clarity of voice if nothing else. A great book. I hope this one holds up just as well.