Poem of the Week: "This Hour and What Is Dead," by Li-Young Lee

Is there any contemporary poet with language as beautiful and quiet as Li-Young Lee? I kind of doubt it. When I stumbled upon this poem last night, it actually made me cry. It's so gorgeous and sad and soft, like much of Lee's work. I figured out this poem is actually from his book The City in Which I Love You, which I own but have only ever skimmed. Guess what I'll be reading this week...



This Hour and What Is Dead, by Li-Young Lee

Tonight my brother, in heavy boots, is walking
through bare rooms over my head,
opening and closing doors.
What could he be looking for in an empty house?
What could he possibly need there in heaven?
Does he remember his earth, his birthplace set to torches?
His love for me feels like spilled water
running back to its vessel.

At this hour, what is dead is restless
and what is living is burning.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

My father keeps a light on by our bed
and readies for our journey.
He mends ten holes in the knees
of five pairs of boy’s pants.
His love for me is like his sewing:
various colors and too much thread,
the stitching uneven. But the needle pierces
clean through with each stroke of his hand.

At this hour, what is dead is worried
and what is living is fugitive.

Someone tell him he should sleep now.

God, that old furnace, keeps talking
with his mouth of teeth,
a beard stained at feasts, and his breath
of gasoline, airplane, human ash.
His love for me feels like fire,
feels like doves, feels like river-water.

At this hour, what is dead is helpless, kind
and helpless. While the Lord lives.

Someone tell the Lord to leave me alone.
I’ve had enough of his love
that feels like burning and flight and running away.

This Week in Trashy Reads #1

After my confession yesterday, I've decided to start a new post category, hereafter known as "This Week in Trashy Reads." Since I don't necessarily read a "trashy" book every week, these posts won't be posted on a regular basis. But a handful will definitely sneak in each month.

Yesterday, in my review, I mentioned that one of the best things about the Smart Bitches, Trashy Books crew is their ability to point me in the direction of some good romance novels, rather than the terrible crap that normally represents romance. So when I saw this glowing review for Julie James's Something About You, I new I had to check it out. I was not disappointed.

There are few things I am a total sucker for when it comes to romance novels. (To name a few: series about brothers, damaged heroes - particularly ones with tragic/traumatic pasts, and anything involving nerds or small towns). One of these is the "I hate you, NO! I love you" approach. Cameron Lynde and Jack Pallas have a complicated past, in which FBI agent Jack blames U.S. attorney Cameron for ruining an extremely important case. But Jack doesn't know what really went down, and neither is very fond of each other. But when Cameron is the only witness to a murder, Jack and her are pushed back together. Obviously, emotions and hot sex ensue.

But I wasn't really into this book for the plot, which was quite vanilla, really. In fact, for the first hundred pages, I was almost bored. Then things get steamy. But that really wasn't why I liked the book, either. Rather, I enjoyed it because it was actually quite funny, and all the side characters were very charming. I particularly liked Jack's partner, Agent Wilkins, who is adorably honest and quippy, and Cameron's best friend Collin, who is gay but (as the Smart Bitch site points out) not at all a cliche. Also, by mentioning romance novel cliches throughout the book in well-done bouts of dialogue, it manages not to feel so trashy.

So, in the end, this was a really fun read that didn't need to have substance to get me interested. Yay for trashy books that take my mind of things!

The One Where I Finally Admit I Am Becoming an Avid Romance-Reader

Those of you who know me know I consider myself a pretty serious reader. I like the Tolstoy and the poetry and judging the reading choices of others. But, I have to admit I mostly like reading for the chance to get to be inside made-up peoples' heads as they do made-up things. And sometimes, I don't want those things to so serious and morally-complex and achingly well-written. Sometimes, I just want to escape.

So I am finally willing to confess that I am becoming addicted to romance novels. They are so cheesy and wonderful! I love to read them just before bed, when my mind is less likely to handle more sophisticated thinking (and, you know, having a hot-looking fictional dude be the last thing on your mind before sleep ain't so bad either). And now, I've found some compatriots in my newfound joy: Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan, the "Smart Bitches, Trashy Books" creators.

A couple weeks ago, I shared the link to Wendell and Tan's amazing website, which is hilarious but intelligent, celebrating the highest of the low-brow. Then, I found out they had a book. Naturally, I went right out and ordered it. And man, was it it worth it. Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Novels was exactly what I needed to feel better about my secret habit. The guide is as funny as the website, and probably twice as smart. There are chapters about the development of romance literature (Old Skool vs. New Skool, according to Wendell and Tan), the importance of hero and heroine constructions, the way sex is used, and the terrifically terrible plots. There's even a chapter about the tragedy that is the romance novel cover.

The book was an absolute joy to read and exactly what I needed after the big ball of depressing from last week. Even better, Wendell and Tan know everything there is to know about romance novels and how they are constructed by writers, then enjoyed by readers. For example, there's this wonderful passage about constructing the perfect romance hero, which hits a little too close to home for ol' lecherous Beth (as any of you who know about my eyelash obsession can back up):

And after the eyes, there's one element you cannot forget: the eyelashes. No hero has stubby, forgettable eyelashes. They're always long, deceptively sooty, and visible from at least two to three acres away. When the heroine gives her survey of the hero, and notes the things about him that she cannot help but stare at, his eyes, and then his eyelashes, are nearly always mentioned. Long eyelashes are the first key that This Is the Hero because somehow eyelashes have become synonymous with some deeper, hidden sensitivity and kindness. No one who has long, sweeping eyelashes is evil, obviously.

Anyway, to make a long story short, this book is great. Even better, it provided me with the names of some romance writers to check out (since I'm stuck in a bit of a Nora Roberts rut). If you suddenly find yourself reading romance on the side, you absolutely have to check out Wendell and Tan's website and book.

Poem of the Week: "Van Gogh's Prayer," by János Pilinszky

Flipping through my back issues of Poetry magazine is always hit and miss for me. Sometimes, I'll find something suprisingly good. Most of the time, I roll my eyes at how hard the poets and the magazine try and fail to capture my attention. But this morning when I was flipping through the March 2008 issue, I found a poem I'd forgotten I loved. I'd even penned a giant asterisk in the corner of the page to mark it. And yet, two years later, I failed to remember it. So I reread it and enjoyed it all over again. So, here is that poem, by a Hungarian poet whose work I will now be looking up. I think it is quiet and simple and very lovely.

Van Gogh's Prayer, by János Pilinszky
Translated by Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri

A battle lost in the cornfields
and in the sky a victory.
Birds, the sun and birds again.
By night, what will be left of me?

By night, only a row of lamps,
a wall of yellow clay that shines,
and down the garden, through the trees,
like candles in a row, the panes;

there I dwelt once and dwell no longer --
I can't live where I once lived, though
the roof there used to cover me.
Lord, you covered me long ago.

A Big Ball of Depressing

When Dan Chaon's first novel, You Remind Me of Me, came out in 2004, I was working weekends at a little independent bookstore. I loved those days as a teenager, spending my shifts reading publication materials and trade magazines. I couldn't get enough of reading new book reviews and being "in the know" about the publishing and bookselling industries. One of the books I remember really making a mark, with all its positive reviews and surprising popularity for a piece of literary fiction, was Chaon's novel. But, like Marilynne Robinson's Gilead (which is another book everyone was freaking out about back then), I wanted to read the book post-hype. And like Gilead, it took me five years to get to that point.

So, I finally read You Remind Me of Me this week. And you know what? I'm already kind of regretting it. Because, you see, this book might just be the single most depressing piece of fiction I've ever read.

Here's the thing: I've read books that are much sadder - books full of death and war and tragedy. This book didn't have much of any of that. Also, as you all know, I really like sad books. But for some reason, You Remind Me of Me was a little too much of a mood-spoiler even for me. The characters' lives were so thematically hopeless and pathetic and crushing that I could hardly take it. Plus, it didn't help that Chaon did not add a single bright spot to divert my attention. The book was just a grinding, nonstop road of misery.

Obviously, I must have found the book compelling enough. I have no qualms about giving up on books I don't like in the middle, but I kept all the way to the end with this one. Partly that was from some idea that the book HAD to become happier. I thought there was no way Chaon could sustain this kind of pain for so long. But no, I was wrong. Somehow, the book became even more hopeless by the end. I also continued to read the book because Chaon's writing was occasionally very nice (although he's far too wordy for my taste in general) and because I appreciated the way he let the characters make their own dumb choices without interference on his part. That's a lot harder for a writer than most people realize.

Frankly, this book should have been right up my alley. It's about brothers (one given up for adoption, the other doomed to stay with his screwed-up mother) who don't meet until they are adults. It's about a father and son (the adopted brother and his little boy, who have the strongest and most loving relationship in the book). It even takes place in small prarie towns (like Gilead!). But I wasn't having it. The two brothers - adopted Troy and dysfunctional Jonah - have such unrelentingly depressing lives that I could hardly take it. I'm not saying that it's not realistic. It very much is. Yet, Chaon refuses again and again to let even the smallest smile cross the faces of his characters and his readers.

Anyway, this book hit the trifecta of sadness for me: failed mothers, doomed children, characters who literally don't have a single connection to the rest of the world. Those things depress the hell out of me. As I told my mom when I finished the book, "If there were some scenes of killing dolphins in here, it would have hit the trifecta!" At the end, my favorite character, Troy, does get a somewhat pleasant second chance at a better life. But nothing really turns out for anyone else. And even worse, I never found it in me as a sympathetic, sophisticated reader to understand the terrible, terrible decisions these people (particularly Jonah) kept making time and time again.

Critics liked Chaon's book because it was honest, well-written, and had a complicated story structure that moves across time and space. And truth is, Chaon had all these things going for him (particularly, in the structure, which ended on a surprisingly perfect place in time as the brothers' mother, Nora, is in labor with Jonah in 1971, tying the book together quite nicely). Yet, I'm now skeptical of all these critics. Because where they saw honesty in writing and subject, I found a strange genre I have now dubbed "misery porn." Because, holy shit, was this a big ball of depressing.

So now that I have all that off my chest, I'm going off to cleanse my palate with a trashy romance novel.

Picnic, Lightning: Ten Books That Make Me Laugh

A couple of weeks ago, I posted my list of ten books that make me cry. So, to make up for that bit of sadness, this week I've decided to share my list of ten books that make me laugh. These are the books that make me chuckle for one reason or another. They aren't all necessarily "funny" books, but they are all written by authors who know a thing or two about being witty.

Picnic, Lightning: Ten Books That Make Me Laugh

1. Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett: What can I say about this book that I haven't said before? It's quite possibly the best example of situational humor I've ever read. Do you know what's funnier than a demon who talks to his house plants in hopes to threaten them into growing faster? Nothing. That's what.

2. Take the Cannoli, by Sarah Vowell: Technically, any of Sarah Vowell's hilarious books could have made this list. But her first book, a collection of charming essays about pop culture and American history and being a nerd, is probably the one that makes me laugh the hardest. Even better, it actually taught me some important tidbits of history. For me, the highlight is the essay "Species-on-Species Abuse," about a trip to Disney World that Vowell took with a friend.

3. About a Boy, by Nick Hornby: The books that are the most fun to read tend to be ones with an even mix of pathos, books with the ability to be funny and sad in a single sentence. Hornby's novel about growing up follows this rule beautifully, with a story that can break your heart in one moment and make you grin like a fool in the next.

4. Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris: Like Sarah Vowell's work, everything David Sedaris writes is absolutely hilarious. But for some reason, of all his books, Me Talk Pretty One Day is my favorite. I don't know if it's because we meet Sedaris's over-the-top brother, Rooster, in this book, or because it contains possibly my favorite Sedaris essay, "Jesus Shaves." I just know this one makes me laugh the hardest.

5. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, by Dave Eggers: As a teenager, Eggers's popular and award-winning memoir was my favorite book. It's fallen a little bit in rank now that I'm older and a little less charmed by overt cleverness, but I'd still call it one of the best memoirs ever written. It's as sad and smart as its title suggests, but it's also a real tickler at times. The humorous highlights most often come in the interactions between Eggers and his much younger brother. It helps that Eggers writes their funny dialogue with flat-out perfect precision.

6. Lolita, by Vladmir Nabokov: There's a reason Nabokov's oft-assigned novel is so infamous. It takes a really uncomfortable subject - pedophilia - and puts a human face on it. This book is about almost everything - love, loss, life, European vs. American culture - so it's no surprise it's so beloved by critics and lit professors. But few people mention how funny it is. The first handful of paragraphs alone make me giggle. This is actually where I got the title for this list, as narrator Humbert Humbert gives us a short version of his family history: "My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three." It's the kind of humor that makes you feel guilty for laughing.

7. Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's Humor Category, by Various Writers and Editors: Before I discovered The AV Club, McSweeney's was my favorite website. Started by Dave Eggers (see # 5), it showcases short pieces displaying a very intelligent and culture-savvy kind of humor. So when the site's editors released this collection, I quickly snatched it up. It did not disappoint. Once again, it's the kind of humor that only certain people feel comfortable with. Like this.

8. Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens: Without a doubt, this is my favorite Dickens novel. It's also considered one of his darkest and most mature. But for some reason, anytime the amazing character of Bradley Headstone comes on the scene, I start cracking up. He's a terrifying psychopath, sure, but his actions are so crazy they border on funny. Honestly, this book probably makes me laugh because I am so appreciative of what Dickens does in it, not because it's actually humorous.

9. The Bald Soprano, by Eugene Ionesco: The first time I read this famous absurdist play, three years ago for a lit class, I continually stopped to read passages out loud because it was so damn funny. It was only after I finished the book and began to write a paper on it that I realized how horrifying it actually was. It's a scrambling of language and sense meant to show our lack of identity and communication. But holy shit, is it amazingly laugh-inducing. Bobby Watson, anyone?

10. Superfudge, by Judy Blume: What can I say? Maybe it's incredibly immature of me, but I can't help but giggle anytime I think of Fudge's myna bird yelling, "Shut up, Stupid!" to everyone it sees.

Poem of the Week: "Misgivings," by William Matthews

Matthews is a poet I can take or pass on, depending on the day. However, this poem from his final collection After All: Last Poems, really sticks with me. The subject is something I think we can all relate to - if not with a lover, then a friend or roommate or family member (really anyone that you spend too much time with). Sometimes thinking about getting tired of the people we love is worse than the actual fallout. The final stanza of this poem is really something, I think. That final image is so arresting that it just kind of sits there in the time and space of my mind. Enjoy!

Misgivings, by William Matthews

"Perhaps you'll tire of me," muses
my love, although she's like a great city
to me, or a park that finds new
ways to wear each flounce of light
and investiture of weather.
Soil doesn't tire of rain, I think,

but I know what she fears: plans warp,
planes explode, topsoil gets peeled away
by floods. And worse than what we can't
control is what we could; those drab,
scuttled marriages we shed so
gratefully may augur we're on our owns

for good reasons. "Hi, honey," chirps Dread
when I come through the door, "you're home."
Experience is a great teacher
of the value of experience,
its claustrophobic prudence,
its gloomy name-the-disasters-

in-advance charisma. Listen,
my wary one, it's far too late
to unlove each other. Instead let's cook
something elaborate and not
invite anyone to share it but eat it
all up very very slowly.