Giovanni's Room

I felt lucky to find yet another great book last month, this one, Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin. It's the story of a closeted American man's affair with and betrayal of an Italian bartender, Giovanni.

Here is an excerpt, from the scene where they meet in the gay bar, where David, the American, hangs out even though he believes he is not gay and has been contemptuous of the men there.

"And he took his round metal tray and moved out into the crowd. I watched him as he moved. And then I watched their faces, watching him. And then I was afraid. I knew that they were watching, had been watching both of us. They knew that they had witnessed a beginning and now they would not cease to watch until they saw the end. It had taken some time, but the tables had been turned; now I was in the zoo, and they were watching."

And later, though David admits to "the ferocious excitement which had burst in me like a storm,"

"I wished, nevertheless, standing there at the bar, that I had been able to find in myself the force to turn and walk out -- to have gone over to Montparnasse perhaps and picked up a girl. Any girl. I could not do it. I told myself all sorts of lies, standing there at the bar, but I could not move. And this was partly because I knew that it did not matter anymore; it did not even matter if I never spoke to Giovanni again; for they had become visible, as visible as the wafers on the shirt of the flaming princess, they stormed all over me, my awakening, my insistent possibilities."

Semiotic or Semi-Idiotic?

Inquiring minds want to know. Now that the godfather of the National Enquirer has gone to meet Elvis, there's a book about it all. Review at WSJ.com.

But it's in the Koran

A racy, historical novel based on the Prophet Muhammad's child bride A'isha was supposed to hit book stores in the U.S....

But in a rare case of self-censorship to preempt possible violent reaction by Muslims, one of the world's largest publishing houses pulled the plug on the book just before its release date.

At issue is Jones' portrayal of the prophet's wife A'isha, whom Muhammad is said to have married when she was 9 years old. In her novel Jones describes the consummation of their marriage when A'isha was 14. At Fox.

Um, what was the rule with child brides? Was 14 actually the age of consummation?

Uh, not according to this.

Excerpt:

Muhammad was 52 and Aisha was 9 when they married and sexually consummated their marriage. Muhammad followed an Arab custom in marrying a child who had her first menstrual cycle. ...Muhammad's action and teachings on marriage established an Islamic precedent: a girl is judged an adult following her first menses, and is eligible for marriage and sexual relations. Thus Muslim men are allowed to marry and have intercourse with young girls who have happened to have an early first menstrual cycle....

Muhammad's first wife - Khadija, died a few years before he fled to Medina. Later, he was encouraged to take another wife. At the age of 49 he was betrothed to Aisha, age six. Aisha was his closest friend's, Abu Bakr's, daughter. At that time, she had already been betrothed to another man but by mutual consent the betrothal was dissolved. Three years later, following her first menstrual cycle, he then formally married and sexually consummated his marriage with her.

What is more critical than Muhammad's single action with Aisha is that he taught that a girl is considered an adult following her first menstrual cycle. He also taught that his followers were to follow his "sunnah" or lifestyle. Thus today, throughout much of the Mideast, girls as young as nine are often married by men old enough to be their grandfather.

So, here we have a book of historical fiction, altered to make a man considered to be a prophet not seem like a pedophile (is 14 the age of consent anywhere, however?), and it's being pulled?

It's all too complicated. Just publish the book -- I wonder how many people would have even heard of it without all the press it's getting. As the article above points out, child marriage is not uncommon in history, and in various cultures, although it is illegal in many countries now.

Book Her

The next time you forget to return a couple of library books (and ignore those annoying letters about the overdue status of said volumes), think of Heidi Dalibor. The Wisconsin woman, 20, was arrested earlier this month in connection with a pair of books overdue for several months.

Story at The Smoking Gun.

But you know, Enron, the bogus-weapons-of-mass-destruction thing, that you can get away with in this country. Anyway, I don't think you can get arrested for overdue library books just anywhere. I don't think my local library even has fines. They just send an invoice after a month. Okay, how do I know? I'm guilty. Lucky for me I don't live in Wisconsin.

Fake Book Signing to Be Held in Los Angeles

Why is that not a surprise? Authors are hiring people to sign their books for them. Too busy fixing their own computers or something? Those complicated new automatic espresso machines?

At Gawker.com and the Guardian.

I have to include a photo:


A friend has one of these. Worth losing sleep over.

Art of the Blurb

For writers, to blurb or not to blurb can be a tricky matter. Blurb too little and you’ll have a hard time drumming up the requisite superlatives when your turn comes. Blurb too often, or include too many blurbs on your book, and you might get called a blurb whore.

From the NY Times

Forget All the Other New Jersey Suburbs

RIP Rust Hills, former Esquire editor and fussy man.

In 1963 Mr. Hills conceived an entire literary issue of the magazine, which included stories, but also interviews with writers; a photo essay on writers’ lives; a snarky profile by Gay Talese of the circle surrounding George Plimpton’s Paris Review; and most controversially, an illustrated diagram of “The Structure of the American Literary Establishment,” identifying writers, agents, publishers, reviewers and events that Mr. Hills determined to be at and around the “red-hot center” of American literary life. The issue and especially the map angered many who felt they ought to have been included and many who were, but entertained just about everybody else.

Yes, we read his Writing in General and the Short Story in Particular in college, and thought he had a funny name.

Okay, full disclosure, as a friend says, I thought his writing book was eh and included a bad story he had written, unless I read that elsewhere. It was part of a writing workshop I took with one of the two really awful writing teachers I've had (I've had good ones, too). I've since seen her work anthologized, and I'm distinctly unimpressed.

It is possible her ineptitude colored my opinion of his book.

"I don't know much about creative writing programs.

But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two, that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer." -- Doris Lessing.

I found this quotation on John Baker's blog (see sidebar), and Googled it, and found a couple of interesting interviews and lists of quotes. Lessing talks a bit about what a writer's life requires, and the life of a single parent who is a writer. She's more realistic than most, I think, about the sacrifices entailed. We who like to think we can have it all should consider ourselves warned.

I think -- and she might well agree -- that "having it all" is a recently created concept, a marketing strategy, a way to get people to consume more things, services, etc. I believe there was a time when everyone expected to make choices that limited their options. Few people expect that now, and we are encouraged to call it progress. But it turns from progress into a burden at a certain point, and I think we've reached that point, both psychologically and in terms of the load on the planet.

A friend from Russia put this succinctly. He described standing in the supermarket looking at the huge number of different varieties of toilet paper for sale -- white, green, pink, blue, scented, unscented, extra-soft, two-ply, recycled, packed in separate rolls, in twos, fours, sixes, eights, dozens. The real question, he said (I'm paraphrasing; it was a long time ago), is why do you need so many choices?

A View from the Yard

This morning, I heard one of the three neighborhood fawns crying for its mother. There are two twin fawns and one singleton, and two does. They all hang around together, but the does sometimes leave the fawns. Anyway, one of the does answered with the funny clicking sound they make, and the fawn went to it, but apparently It Wasn't Mom, because the fawn shrank away and trotted off, still crying. The doe followed it, the way you follow your friend's crying kid...

Have I said how annoying the deer usually are? Eating all the flowers and spreading ticks. It was nice to have a different experience of them.

Why I Love Email

1. Because people send all kinds of things. I have no idea of the actual provenance of this. I just know it had me laughing out loud first thing in the morning, about something that is really not funny.

The 23rd Qualm

(Written by a retired Methodist minister.)

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace
for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution
and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control,
they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the
presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me
all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

Resuscitation of a Hanged Man

Since the beginning of last year, cf previous posts, I've been keeping a list of books I read. I just read over the list and was disappointed in how many of those books I just didn't like. You could lose your faith in reading, except that once in awhile a book like this comes along.

"And I asked myself: The way you are now, would your eight-year-old self approve of you? Would your eight-year-old self -- that totally innocent child, with those ideals that are real, man, and human -- would he approve?"

The tall thin man got up and headed out the door.

"No fucking way. I was betraying that kid," Phil said, "my childhood self. I'm talking about the real feeling of like if you stuck a bayonet in your buddy's back, not just ripping off a friend or something like that, but killing, death. You know what I'm saying man?" Phil's face was crushed under the pressure of his pain. "I don't think you know the kind of treachery I'm talking about."

"Whatever's on tap," English said, and the bartender drew him a glass of beer.

Phil's troubled scrutiny had floated over and snagged on the cross-dresser. "You never tasted that kind of treachery, man."

The cross-dresser smiled and shrugged. Her eyes were very red.

"But then, and then it was like," Phil said, holding his hand out before him, gazing cross-eyed into his open palm as if this memory rested right there in it, "the ghost of John Lennon appeared to me. And he said, Fuck that, he can't judge you, because an eight-year-old doesn't have the knowledge, man. Those ideals of yesterday, even everything you believed two hours ago, man -- fuck that. We don't need to apologize to our past selves. They were the ones who turned into us. We are just who we are. You know?" he asked the cross-dresser.

She sat in splendid isolation, putting her very red lips around the cherry from her Manhattan.

A Fun Way to Waste Time

I guess most of them are fun, or we wouldn't do them, or doing them, wouldn't consider them a waste of time because if we're not doing something for fun, it must be necessary...whew, got that?

Wordle.net:



Should be labeled "not writing" -- but at least it keeps me off that celebrity face recognition site.

MSG 4 U

In the four minutes it probably takes to read this review, you will have logged exactly half the time the average 15- to 24-year-old now spends reading each day. That is, if you even bother to finish. If you are perusing this on the Internet, the big block of text below probably seems daunting, maybe even boring. Who has the time? Besides, one of your Facebook friends might have just posted a status update!

Read the rest.

I'm surprised the rest of the population got off without criticism. I know I spend way too much time checking my email and messages. But I did read 79 books last year, although I am only up to 30 so far this year.

Time for Twain

The man who said:

The difference between the right word and the almost right word is really a large matter — it's the difference between a lightning bug and the lightning.

and advised youth:

Be respectful to your superiors, if you have any.

is featured in Time.

While you're reading, check out his page at Wikiquote.