Tuesday, March 28, 2006
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A little about books

I've neglected writing about reading too long on this blog, especially since I'm such a book fanatic. Today starts a series of posts about me and books (although we'll see how long I stick to the idea). I'll start with a snapshot of the current moment when it comes to reading.

In general, the amount of time I spend reading is inversely proportional to the amount of time I spend cycling. This is especially related to my commute (it's very easy to read on the bus, and very difficult to read on the bike). Lately I've been riding a lot, so I've been reading much less. Not to say I haven't been reading; my most recent books are as follows:

David Lee Roth's autobiography, Crazy from the Heat. I'm not much of a musician/memoir reader; this one was lent to me by a friend and served an excellent role as toilet reading. In general, Amazon reviewers thought this book was wonderful (average rating: 4.5/5 stars). I found it shockingly incoherent and full of Mr. Roth's giant ego (I must admit, occasionally amusing). It was apparently edited down from thousands of pages; I can't imagine what it was like before the editing process. However, this made it ideal as a toilet read: as the tales he relates don't seem to be in any particular order, and tend to fade from one tale into the next without resolution, one need not adjust the duration of one's transactions to correspond with chapters, narrative units, etc.

Iain Sinclair's Lights Out for the Territory. An excellent counterpoint to the Roth biography which I read in more public places. This one also contains its share of incoherent ramblings, but they're all inspired by Sinclair's psychogeopgraphical journeys around London, and it's full of interesting London characters, obscure locations, objects and events which together make up a sort of London mythology. Each of the sections follows the author on a hike in London, and no detail is too minor to set him off on a string of associations about the area, its people, its mood, and how all of them may have changed as time goes by. His approach to exploring the area resonates with me quite a bit, although my inclinations toward interpretation are substantially less grandiose. (Amazon reviews: average 4/5 stars)

David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster and other essays. I'm a huge fan of DFW, whose Infinite Jest is one of my favorite books of all time. His short stories, on the other hand, have been largely disappointing (and let's not even go into Everything and More: A Compact History of Infinity which is infuriating in its unholy union of chatty ramblings about like the greatest math teacher ever and just how cool he was, and (fairly) well put together mathematical content), and I found his previous book of essays A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again mixed: I really really enjoyed the title essay, in which DFW recounts a decidedly unfun experience on a luxury cruise, and also his account of visiting the Illinois State Fair [featuring an incident of overeating sufficiently severe to require medical attention], but others on more highbrow sujects were less memorable/interesting. The same can be said about this one: the essays I enjoyed most were those that revolved around DFW's personal experiences in various situations (Adult Video News awards ceremony; traveling on the John McCain bus during his 2000 Presidential campaign; watching the events of Sept 11 2001 with neighbors in Bloomington, IL). There was also an excellent piece on Tracy Austin's autobiography and how unsatisfied DFW was with its lack of meaningful content (mirroring my own complaints about the massive number of interviews with successful ath(a)letes who just go on and on about doing it for the team, and sucking it up when the heat's on, and giving 110%, and just pulling together like a unit and getting things done, ad infinitum). The title piece was written for Gourmet magazine about the Maine Lobster Festival, and had DFW's characteristic interesting observations about the event itself, before mutating into DFW's opinions about the ethics of lobster preparation and so on (yawn... I've read more of this sort of stuff than I care to acknowledge, and it feels like more of an individual decision at this level). An assortment of hifalutin articles that I sorta skipped over (Dostoevsky, Kafka), and an essay about correct English language usage which has had the fur flying for quite a while (for example, see Language Hat's post "David Foster Wallace Demolished" [scroll down]; google snoot wallace if you want to read more about this particular topic. I have a few opinions on the subject myself but have run out of time to say much for now). Oh yeah, I have to mention the final essay in the book. It was a reasonably-decent discussion of talk radio in the US (and why it's like it is), terribly, terribly marred by inline "footnotes" in boxes (not necessarily corresponding to their narrative location) which broke up the text, were connected to their relevant section by arrows (and sometimes multiple arrows). It was just about impossible to read, a shame because the content was quite good (why? why? why not just stick with standard footnoting, with which DFW is quite well acquainted I can assure you. Apparently when it originally appeared in The Atlantic the notes were formatted in a more agreeable and readable way.).

So that's what I've just read now. Next time, some influential books or events involving books from my youth.
read
Tuesday, March 28, 2006 12:30:50 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)  #    Disclaimer  |  Comments [2]  |  Related posts:
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Wednesday, March 29, 2006 3:11:20 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Good post. I enjoyed reading.

I found it surprising (based on what little I know about your interests and tastes) you skipped the Kafka and Dostoevsky essays. I would think the extremely psychological Dostoevsky would be an appealing read to you and that you would enjoy Kafka's labyrithine narratives (although I could understand how you, like many, may tire quickly of the overriding pessimism). Of course, there is also an understandable distinction between reading these authors and reading essays about these authors.

Anyway, looking forward to your future posts since I have no idea who (beyond DFW and Pynchon) influences/d you.
Brad (brother-in-law)
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 9:41:34 AM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)
Thanks for the comment. You're right about Kafka and Dostoevsky: I really enjoy reading both of them (including the pessimism... bring it on I say). I just have very limited patience for reading criticism/analysis; I'd far rather spend the time reading (or re-reading) another short story by either of the aforementioned authors than anything someone else has to say about their writing.
Dunce
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