GENTLEMEN OF THE ROAD/SUMMERLAND

As the Month of Chabon goes on, my esteem for him continues to grow; I’ve definitely crossed over from casual reader to actual fan. Is there no genre he can’t take on? Thanks to Editor A, who recommended it and lent it to me, I greatly enjoyed Gentlemen of the Road, aka “Jews With Swords” (in the Afterword, which is genius in and of itself, Chabon claims this was the book’s original title). It’s a brief, swashbuckling illustrated adventure tale that (although it contains no magic) somehow pleasantly reminded me of the Judith Tarr fantasy novels (particularly the “Hound and the Falcon” and “Avaryan Rising” trilogies) I loved as a teenager, even down to certain plot points. I’m very curious to know whether Chabon ever read them, or if the similarity is just a coincidence of genre. Now I’m rereading Summerland and still think it’s a near-perfect young adult novel. Though I’ve now caught up with all Chabon’s major works (I’ve left his two short-story collections unread, as well as the two McSweeney’s anthologies he edited), I’ll be sorry for the month to end. Can’t wait to see what his next novel is like!

THE FINAL SOLUTION/THE YIDDISH POLICEMEN’S UNION

January is Michael Chabon month, and I am enjoying it greatly so far. I kicked off with a novella called The Final Solution, which imagines a very elderly Sherlock Holmes (though his name is never mentioned) unraveling a mystery in the 1940s. As the title cleverly implies, the Holocaust overshadows the story and its central mystery. This was a slam-dunk for me, as I’ve read a lot of Holmes stories recently and also greatly enjoyed Julian Barnes’ novel Arthur & George, in which the “Arthur” is Conan Doyle; I also tend to be fascinated with the ’40s. I would highly recommend this bittersweet little book, and the only reason I didn’t give it four stars is that I kept wishing it was longer.

Now I’m nearly halfway through Chabon’s newest novel, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, which I can only describe as “Jewish Raymond Chandler in Alaska.” It’s set in an intriguing alternate-history version of the world, has an alluringly mysterious plot (nothing grabs me like a mystery, honestly), and is wonderfully written. Even the descriptive asides make me sit up and take notice. I’m exhilarated. Most of what I read is pretty good, or at least decent, but I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to read something really good.

After this, I may read one of Chabon’s short-story collections, Werewolves in Their Youth, but I’m kind of itching to reread both Summerland and Wonder Boys, two books I remember really loving. (I also loved Kavalier and Clay, but it’s too long for me to realistically tackle in half a month. I did not love and will not be rereading The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, though I’m tempted to take a peek and see if it still bears a striking, disappointing resemblance to The Secret History, which as an adolescent favorite still holds a very cherished place in my heart.) Chabon’s awfully prolific, though—I could also read his swashbuckling serial Gentlemen of the Road, his early short-story collection A Model World, or the two anthologies he’s edited for McSweeney’s. Guess I’ll just see what I feel like. But regardless, I have a hunch it’s going to be a good year for reading.

THE READING PROJECT, PHASE 3

THE GOAL: Devote each month to reading the works of a different author.

January: Michael Chabon
1. The Final Solution****
2. The Yiddish Policemen’s Union****
3. Gentlemen of the Road***½
4. Summerland*****

February/March: Charles Dickens
1. Charles Dickens, by Jane Smiley***
2. Nicholas Nickleby****
3. David Copperfield***½

April: Raymond Chandler
1. The Lady in the Lake***½
2. The Little Sister***
3. The Long Goodbye****
4. Playback***

May: Annie Dillard
1. The Maytrees**
2. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek***

June: Vladimir Nabokov
1. Lolita****

July: Patricia Highsmith
1. Strangers on a Train***
2. The Boy Who Followed Ripley***
3. Ripley Under Water****

August: Mark Twain
1. Huckleberry Finn****

September: Elizabeth von Arnim
1. Christopher and Columbus*****

October onward: P.G. Wodehouse
1. Thank You, Jeeves***
2. P.G. Wodehouse: A Life, by Robert McCrum***
3. Right Ho, Jeeves*****
4. The Code of the Woosters*****
5. Joy in the Morning****
6. The Mating Season*****
7. Bertie Wooster Sees It Through***
8. Jeeves in the Offing****
9. Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves*****
10. Jeeves and the Tie That Binds****
11. The Cat-Nappers***

* = Didn’t like, didn’t finish
** = OK, but wouldn’t reread
*** = Liked it
**** = Really liked it
***** = Loved it

2007 IN BOOKS

Tremble before my Excel prowess!

Overall, I was disappointing with my reading last year. Not really with the quantity—though, as my handy pink chart of extreme nerdliness demonstrates, it was one of my lower-performing years in recorded history—but with the quality. I enjoyed the books I read, at least while I was reading them, and I don’t think there were any (or many) I would describe as truly awful or worthless, but few stuck with me, at least on the deep, heart-and-soul OMG-I-love-this-book level. In fact, I was almost hard-pressed to pick just 10 for my top books of the year. Of course Harry Potter rocked my world and Dave Eggers, Nick Hornby, Connie Willis, and Calvin Trillin remained reliable Gintastic-pleasers, but I think the only honest-to-god blissful sense of surprise and discovery I felt was for The Prestige (with the runner-up being What Is the What, which was so much more mature and moving than any of Eggers’ previous work). When I read a book I love that much, I actually have to remind myself to focus on reading it, because part of my mind is already looking forward to rereading it. I get briefly, secretly obsessive with things I truly love; usually it’s a new song I feel compelled to listen to again and again until I’ve memorized it, or a TV show I devour on DVD, or a movie so good I want to turn around and see it again (like Juno, which I saw with K in St. Paul on Boxing Day and then saw again with A last weekend…and then I might have bought the soundtrack, too). It’s rare, these days, that it happens with a book. I oppress myself with things I think I should read, or distract myself with things I’m mildly curious about, and it’s all very well and good but it feels more like reading a magazine than like meeting your soulmate. Last year my reading life was a bit short on soulmates, is what I’m saying.

5 FAVORITE FICTION BOOKS 2007 (in chronological order):

1. What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, by Dave Eggers
2. The Living, by Annie Dillard
3. Bellwether, by Connie Willis
4. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
5. The Prestige, by Christopher Priest

5 FAVORITE NONFICTION BOOKS 2007 (in chronological order):

1. About Alice, by Calvin Trillin
2. Housekeeping vs. the Dirt, by Nick Hornby
3. The United States of Arugula: How We Became a Gourmet Nation, by David Kamp
4. Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India, and Indonesia, by Elizabeth Gilbert
5. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver

Even though I didn’t wholeheartedly love Mansfield Park, it was so fun to complete my reading of Jane Austen, to encounter that one last new-to-me book by an author I love. And that got me thinking: there are certainly many authors who I follow, reading everything they publish as it comes out, but there are many more I’ve enjoyed one or several books by, but never followed through to explore the rest of their oeuvre. I always think I will, but then some bright, shiny, new object steals my attention. So if what I feel my reading lacks is depth, why don’t I dive deep into the works of some of my possibly-favorite authors and see what else they’ve got to give me? This should appeal to me—I’m a completist who, as a child, loved nothing more than reading every book in a series and then lining them up neatly on the shelf. As a project, it has structure, but there’s room for freedom as well—I don’t have to read everything an author has ever written, just focus on him or her for a little while instead of darting all over the place in the library like a hummingbird.

So, for my Reading Project this year, I’ve selected 10 authors I want to get to know better, and I’ll devote a month to each one—with the exception of Dickens and Wodehouse, who get two months apiece (I know that unless I quit my job, just reading one Dickens novel might take me an entire month, and I’d like to read at least two; meanwhile, Wodehouse gets to stick around because I’d like to try to read all the Jeeves books, and there are 11 of them). I’ll read at least one (preferably at least two) books by that author I haven’t read before. I can also reread books I have read by them (this applies to Wodehouse, because I can never remember which Jeeves books I’ve read, so similar are they, and to Twain, whose work was mainly read to me when I was a kid, and to Dillard and Chabon, who’ve written a lot of books I’ve loved and been wanting to revisit). I can also read biographies or other nonfiction about the author in question (Editor A recommended a bio of Wodehouse I’m looking forward to, and I’m curious about Highsmith and Chandler too). I can also read whatever the hell else I want to in any spare time I have left, no matter who wrote it, because I’m not into forcing myself to read stuff. That way lies madness, or at least dissatisfaction.

The complete list of authors is here.