kim said

It's the Eye of the Tiger

The 75 book challenge is going more slowly than I anticipated in part because the last few months have been frantically busy with promotion for The May Queen, trips to L.A. for my day job, and most recently a last-minute trip to visit family in Austin (a wealth of material that is begging to be put to paper). Enough with the excuses, but I'll keep my update short.  Julian Barnes' England, England (#12) was similar to the campy Las Vegas version of England dreamt up in the novel. It's enticing, clever, ironic, and amusing but, in keeping with the theme, the characters--probably intentionally--lack substance. In the end it made it difficult for me to care about what happened to them.

Balzac's The Wrong Side of Paris (#13) on the other hand, though heavy on religion, was resplendent with character depth, passion,  and a Hegel dialectic moral debate all wrapped up beautifully in a romantic post-revolutionary plot reminiscent of The Scarlet Pimpernel and with,  as the cover raves,  "melodrama akin to The Count of Monte Cristo." Melodrama aside, I found the main character Godefroid's search for meaning in a desperate world powerfully relevant.

V for Vile

Entre Nous is launching a Blogger's Book Club and the first selection is Evelyn Waugh's second novel Vile Bodies. From the Amazon book description: "Improbably, this is a love story in which Adam Fenwick-Symes, a destitute young writer, hungers for Nina Blount, daughter of an eccentric aristocrat. But at the same time, it is a satire that plays against the social whirl of a class doomed to extinction as certainly as the dodo."

Chivalry Isn't Dead!

So just maybe you’ve been toying with the idea of reading the sexy new translation of Don Quixote, but the length and scope of the journey seems, oh, a tad daunting. Maybe you’ve even purchased a copy--yet there it sits on your bookshelf, its crimson cover, its very girth taunting you. Or not. Either way, you don’t have to go it alone.  Cecil (chivalrous is his middle name) Vortex is willing to lead us on this virtual quest and he is an experienced knight having masterminded three previous deathmarches through Gravity's Rainbow, Pale Fire, and At Swim Two Birds. Don Quixote is almost starting to sound like a mere jousting tournament after those three titles, no? So I'm, um, throwing down the guantlet (sorry, I can't seem to stop): join me here.

From the Archives: The Quest

You Say You Want a Revolution?

After a Bordeaux tasting at The Hidden Vine last night I went home and became truly intoxicated by Richard Yates' novel about 1950's suburban malaise, Revolutionary Road (#8), finishing it this morning on the Bart ride to the airport. It's a remarkable novel and one that I'll be thinking about for quite some time. It's hard to envision how it will be adapted into a film, but if the result is even half as good as the source, I imagine it will be fantastic.

Everybody in the Club

*Before I read Willa Cather’s Death Comes for the Archbishop (#7) last week for a “Top 100 English Language Novels of All Time” book club, I mistakenly thought it was going to be some sort of a historical whodunit set in a European monastery. Nope, as you might already know, it’s the life story of a French priest who really lived and worked in the U.S.’s wild west (and was friends with Kit Carson) in the mid- 1800s. If it weren’t for the book club, I probably never would’ve read this book with its poetical descriptions of the lonely southwest and the friendships and enmity among the various men who made it their home. Next up for the club, Nabakov’s Lolita.

*Read Eleanor Herman's Sex with Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (sounds intriguing) alongside Beth from Just My Cup of Tea for her revamped Books and Booze club.

*Join me in ordering your copy of the new Don Quixote translation in anticipation of Cecil Vortex’s looming Don Quixote Deathmarch.

*On my own time, I'll be reading an Ed pick, Richard Yates’ Revolutionary Road next. After that, I’m back to Dickens’ Martin Chuzzlewit for the foreseeable future.

From the Archives: Get Fresh with a Lemon

San Francisco Reader

I know you love poetry, insightful interviews, and new fiction. So have you seen the latest San Francisco Reader? For starters it includes interviews with local artists like musician Sonny Smith, poet Walter Brents, and painter John Herschend. In addition to a powerfully moving short story by Jack Pitts, there is also poetry, of course, and a provocative excerpt from a letter found amongst the Jonestown archives. The issue has already been out for a few weeks, so it may be tough to find it in the usual places. Luckily, Jeff of San Francisco Reader is offering a special discount to KimSaid readers: copies of the very latest issue are available for only $1, just covering the postage. Find out more about San Francisco Reader here or email jeff at sanfranciscoreader dot com to order your issue.

Image: Hearts in San Francisco by John Herschend

So Lonely, Baby

I've been carrying around the Winter 2005 issue of All-Story for a couple weeks now and finally had the chance to read it on the flight down to Los Angeles yesterday morning. The issue's Guest Designer is Tom Waits, whose pictures of oil stains on pavement from out of the way places like Lubbock, TX, where I spent six years of my childhood, and Sioux Falls, Iowa accompany stories filled with longing that will creep into your dreams. The longing for things to be different, more, better, real. The fruits of loneliness, from murder ("High Lonesome," Joyce Carol Oates) to make believe ("Auggie Wren's Christmas," Paul Auster), are harvested in each story. Filmmaker Miranda July who has created a sort-of nouveau eccentricity contributes, "The Shared Patio," a gentle and zany story of one woman's attempt to connect with her neighbors. Mary Gaitskill and director Wayne Wang are also among the contributors. Just the thing to read in the in-between other world that exists 20,000 feet above the earth.