In the ways that things have of coming full-circle, fictionalized podcasts are the new dramatized radio shows of our great-grandparents generation.

Fictionalized podcasts are having a moment right now. If you are one of the 40% of Americans listening to podcasts (according to Edison Research), then you already aware of this fact. If you aren’t yet part of the initiated, you might not be aware of just how big a phenomena podcasts are.

In fact, if you haven’t be exposed to or checked out the latest podcast offerings, you might think that podcasts are just NPR shows like “This American Life”. While I certainly don’t have anything against “This American Life,” (I, in fact, love it), there is a world beyond what the show does–especially for those who like fiction.

Fiction lovers should really take note of the plethora of offerings in the world of fictionalized podcasts. Lest you think that fictionalized podcasts are just like audiobooks with ads, think again. Fictionalized podcasts honor the tradition of a serialized show like the radio dramas or soap operas of the past. While you certainly can binge-listen to a fictionalized podcast, just like with any Netflix show, there is so much more you can get from listening to it with breaks in between the episodes. 

If you don’t want to just take my word for it, give fictionalized podcasts a try. I have put together a list of the some of the most-worthy listens to get you started. Give these podcasts a listen via a podcatcher like Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Stitcher, or Spotify, which are available via your app store.

5 Fictionalized Podcasts Worth a Listen

1. Homecoming

“Homecoming” is a psychological thriller from Gimlet Media (a big name in the world of podcasting), and Season Two also stars some big names from Hollywood including Catherine Keener and David Schwimmer. This podcast is probably the best place to start for an introduction into fictionalized podcasts.

2. Welcome to Night Vale

“Welcome to the Night Vale” can be described as “The Prarie Home Companion” of fiction podcasts, but much darker. One of the very first fiction podcasts, the show featured updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, which includes weather updates, crime reports, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and more.

3. Limetown

A modern-day “The War of the Worlds,” this podcast will leave you wondering is it real or not. The story chronicles the disappearance of over three hundred men, women and children from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again and a reporter’s quest to find out what happened.

4. The Black Tapes

“The Black Tapes” is a docudrama about a paranormal investigator. Think of “The X Files” without all the science fiction and in a serialized podcast format instead of a serialized television show. There are three seasons of “The Black Tapes” in which to get lost!

5. Tanis

“Tanis” is a spin-off of “The Black Tapes,” so if you like the one, keep going with the other. “Tanis” is another fictionalized exploration of mysteries that can be found in the world all around us. It’s set in the Pacific Northwest and chronicles the quest to understand the myth of Tanis.

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The post Fictionalized Podcasts Are Having a Moment (And We Can’t Get Enough of Them) appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead something different. Sustain your mind.

I’m reading Beloved by Toni Morrison. It’s a good thing too, and not just because it’s a brilliant novel. The truth is that I never got around to this acclaimed classic for all the wrong reasons. In fact, looking back on why this book escaped me brings up something I think I’ve always been aware of, but tend to avoid talking about.

Why have I not read Beloved? A great many people consider it to be a—if not the—Great American Novel. Published in 1987, the book depicts slavery, its aftermath, and its impact on African-American families—specifically mother-daughter relationships. It’s beautifully written, and as arresting and powerful as anything I’ve ever read. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 and is consistently on every “best books of all-time” list worth its salt. Yet sadly, it’s within all these points that I find my answer.

Truth be told, and as dry as it sounds, I’m a white, middle-class man. While I fancy myself a progressive thinker, Morrison’s book challenges my fiction comfort zone—that is to say, my “go to” list of what I normally choose to read. It’s not that I ever thought Beloved wouldn’t be a quality read—it’s just that I can be lazy. I’ve always thought of the book as intensely female- and family-oriented, and, of course, it’s focused on an excruciating, criminal and evil part of our cultural heritage. It’s not that I purposely choose to avoid these perspectives and subjects—it’s just that given the choice, I’ll usually default to something “more my speed.” My easy brain says: “Right. Pass. Maybe one day.”

Now I think I do better than most when it comes to reading outside my box. My reviews come in around the 50/50 men-to-women ratio and I even wrote a piece encouraging a good-faith gender exchange of reading material. But the fact remains: My bookshelves are crammed with people like me—white, middle-class men. (Ouch.) Yes, among my collected authors are writers of different genders, ethnicities and sexual orientations. I even have a couple books by conservatives. Hell, I have dozens of books by people who aren’t even like me!

Dozens!

(Yeah. I own many hundreds of books.)

Taking Action

Here’s how I came to be reading Beloved (and how I almost, stupidly, passed on the great book yet again): A couple of weeks back I was writing an InPRINT column on historical fiction. My plan was to mention some examples in the essay portion of the story, and then recommend 10 terrific titles. Because of my audience (and yes, because I have at least some commitment to broadening my brain), I went through my usual drill before choosing which books to include and asked myself: How many of these are by men and how many by women? How many are by African Americans or other people of color? Have I included writers with varying sexual orientations? Then a similar examination of plot lines, characters and themes: Is there a healthy mix? “Hmm. I should add another woman… and another person of color. I got it! Beloved! Two birds with one stone!” Off I went to my local bookstore.

On the way I began to have second thoughts. Was I manipulating my list for gender, race and political reasons? Was I forcing myself to read something that I might not ordinarily pick up because it was the “correct” thing to do? Was I being reactive to the fact that our media and publishing culture has been both sexist and racist in its coverage and promotion of the fiction we read?

“Yes, yes and yes!”

And so I stepped on the gas. And yes, Beloved is an amazing book. (I’ll let you know more about it when I’m finished.)

A Challenge For Us All

It is true that we live in a world that’s biased, bought and paid for when it comes to the fiction that’s proffered in our bookstore windows and on our computer screens. Indeed, this applies to almost all of the information we’re encouraged to take in these days (see what passes as “news”). The largest media outlets, book publishers and bookstores all, for many reasons, seem to have made little progress when it comes to breaking through diversity barriers in terms of gender, race and sexual orientation. And while that could be the biggest story in fiction today, there’s one place we can all start to address the issue—with our own choices.

Each of us can personally challenge ourselves to actively reach out and encounter who and what takes us outside what we know. For those of us who love fiction, there is no excuse not to read about the world from a point of view other than our own. Indeed, it is through the eyes of others that we can best gain a more robust perspective of our culture—its subjective truths and glories and failings as they apply to more than just our own insular lives. For this white boy that includes following a Nobel Prize-winning, master storyteller into the tragic life of an African American mother and slave. Where might it lead you?

________________________

With your help, InPRINT would like to run a follow-up to this column. We’d like to hear from you about your experiences reading a story by someone representing a point of reference or view outside your box. Better still, go out and get such a book now. Take some action to broaden your horizons, and then tell us about it. You can reach us at InPRINT@ecosalon.com.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing. You can reach him at InPRINT@ecosalon.com.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPRINT: Once Upon a Time: Great Historical Fiction – 1 Genre, 10 Novel, 5 Centuries

InPRINT: John Irving is Angry – Again.

InPRINT: You Want Erotic? The Countless Shades of Anaïs Nin

InPRINT: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

InPRINT: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

Top image: cliff1066TM

The post InPRINT: A Novel Challenge – Take Action and Read Outside Your Box appeared first on EcoSalon.

The best of the week at EcoSalon, hand-picked for your clicking pleasure.

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… a well-stocked vegan pantry: what are the essential items you need to make healthy, tasty animal-free meals? Find out here.

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…sustainable fashion: what does that phrase really mean to you? {r}evolution apparel took to the streets of Seattle to find out.

…“Mommy War”: in the wake of the backlash from Anne -Marie Slaughter’s provocative article in The Atlantic on the role of women in the modern world, Andrea Newell asks – is the real problem our workaholic culture, and what can we do about it?

…good coffee: when fast, drive-thru coffee is this wasteful, can we ever call it “good”?

The post The Friday 5: Defining Edition appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a book, sustain your mind.

“Once upon a time…” It raises a question, doesn’t it? Once upon when?

As much as the people who populate a piece of fiction, the context of when a story takes place can be a powerful character in the books we read. When drives plot, creates action, and provides drama that makes us think and feel. When also, of course, helps set the scene, orientating us with a framework for making assumptions and even providing us with a vocabulary to use as we go. Yes, the simple and inviting “once upon a time” is indeed a loaded phrase.

Books that lean into the “back when” aspect of a story are collectively known as historical fiction, a loosely defined genre that includes novels whose action takes place (some say) 50 or more years before they were penned. From there, the category is really anybody’s game. Some authors use an era solely as a backdrop for wholly fictional characters, simply submerging make believe in a recognizable timeframe. Others painstakingly research and (re)create historically accurate, “real” characters and events, offering as little fiction as possible and avoiding the nonfiction category only by virtue of contrived dialogue and minor speculation. Most such tales exist somewhere between those two approaches, though all take us to another time and place.

Much like place plays a role in a story, requiring its own form of character development to ring true and get the reader where the author wants him or her to go, historical timeframes beg for their own meticulous construction. It’s not easy for a writer to give a moment of time its full due, presenting the sights, sounds, smells and nuances of a time gone by in a way that comes across as authentic. Done right, however, the result can well serve any category of fiction—mystery, romance, adventure, horror, comedy, you name it—elevating stories to present rich matrices of ideas.

Gore Vidal’s great Creation is an excellent illustration of genre (and a favorite of mine since I was young). The story takes place in the 5th century BC and has a fairly simple premise: An unlikely and largely unaligned Persian diplomat (a fictional decedent of Zoroaster who is handpicked to be the “real” Persian prince Xerxes’ childhood companion) ends up in the role of a traveling diplomat on behalf of the great empire. Here’s the cool part: During this period in history, Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, Lao Tzu and other heavyweights are alive—and our hero, Cyrus, as he assumes his task of roaming and representing, gets a meet and greet with each of these visionaries.

The book is an arresting read: We get Vidal’s unique storytelling abilities (it’s a page-turner), tons of political and geographic history (note the Persian outlook here, as opposed to our usual view from Greece and the West of this critical time in history), and the opportunity to explore the lives and philosophies of some of the greatest innovators and spiritual giants the world has ever known. Pick your angle and you’re in. Obviously it’s all from Gore’s particular social and political angle, but what’s not to like about that? It’s his fiction, right? (Vidal haters and conservatives, please pile your letters here to my right.)

More on Later

While epics like Creation reach back to a time that (by definition) requires massive amounts of speculation, other successful historical novels tend to their expository, artistic and philosophical work using the more recent—and well-documented—past.  While this might seem to be limiting in terms of having to follow the strict rules of “what we know actually happened” and “who did what,” this is not always the case.

E.L. Doctorow’s masterpiece Ragtime, for example, covers a period of time in the early 1900s when our nation was struggling to cope with unprecedented social, political and technological change. Presented through the interwoven lives of three families—one African American, one high-class WASP and the other Jewish immigrants—the novel powerfully examines the many (think melting pot) issues and challenges its post-Civil War/pre-WWI characters experience. Though it uses a backdrop of people and events that are true to history (J.P. Morgan, Harry Houdini, Carl Jung, just to name-drop a few), Doctorow’s story at times has an almost ethereal, magical—even mythological—feel that gives us an emotional sense of the pivotal time that no direct read of nonfictional events possibly could.

Regarding even more recent events in 20th century America (if you’ll allow me to push the 50-year rule; do the 1960s and 70s now qualify as historical fiction?), consider Philip Roth’s (perhaps best) American Pastoral—a monumental look at the effects of the cultural milieu of the pre and actual Vietnam War era on the lives of a New Jersey family. While events remain true to the time, it is the very personal story of a fictional family’s interpersonal trials that illustrate the era rather than the events themselves. The overwhelming feeling one gets from this novel is that we at once comprise and are at the mercy of a great sweeping march of events that are beyond our control. Epic stuff.

As for specific events, it’s true that in many ways, historical fiction can offer as much or more insight into an era or issue than any nonfiction can—and have a cultural impact to go with it. Perhaps the best example of this in our modern landscape is how many Americans (non-African Americans, in particular) have only recently begun to get their arms around the truths of slavery and racism. The cultural influence of novels like Alex Haley’s Roots, Alice Walker’s The Color Purple and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, is immeasurable when it comes to our society’s relationship with this horrifying aspect of our nation’s distant and recent past, as well as, sadly, our current world. These stories have entered the mainstream lives of millions of all types Americans, influencing national consciousness and altering the way countless people view race and gender, as well as political, social, economic and cultural aspects of the country.

Finally, to give you one quick take on the breadth of the role of historical fiction on the literary landscape, consider this: In the last 10 InPRINT columns—none of which were focused on that genre, per se—at least 11 novels discussed would fit into the the category. All are wonderful reads: The Clan of the Cave Bear, Death Comes from the Archbishop, Disaster Was My God, Water Music, The Book Thief, The Last Nude, The Cider House Rules, The Paris Wife, Cain (for those of you who might count the Bible as history), The Buddha in the Attic and True Grit—along with American Pastoral. My take aside, these books are on the must-read lists of many people. Clearly, history is among the most versatile and popular literary tools, capable of doing so much more than just exploring itself through the art form. Historical fiction offers insight into our current selves and how we think and function as humans, regardless of what time it was, or is or will be—be it once upon a time or many years from now.

____________

History, mystery, horror, sex, war—a quick scan of the last 500 years brings to mind the following seven wonderful novels, each guaranteed to enhance your understanding of now by looking back at then…

Wolf Hall, Hillary Mantel (England, 1500-35)

Love a straight-up great story done right? You can believe the hype about Hillary Mantel’s 2009 Man Booker award-winning portrayal of Thomas Cromwell’s life and relationship with Henry VIII. Wolf Hall‘s gripping and rich approach to the classic tale reframes the usually unredeemable Cromwell into a more sympathetic character, while the righteous Thomas More suffers particularly ill treatment. (The book’s sequel, Bring Up the Bodies, was published just this year.)

My Name is Red, Orhan Pamuk (Turkey, 1591)

Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk’s celebrated 1998 story of “miniaturist” artists in the Ottoman Empire manages to hold you with its unique storyline while at the same time playing with modern (and clever) literary techniques, adding a layer of freshness to this view of a very old world. Shifting voices and stories only enhance My Name is Red’s intrigues and mysteries, which are all worthy of Sultan’s court. (Also check out Pamuk’s intense The White Castle, another great historical fiction set in Istanbul a number of years later in 17th century.)

Girl With a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier (Holland, 1660s)

A behind-the-scene story of the great Dutch artist Johannes Vermeer, his masterwork and his model, Girl With a Pearl Earring brings 17th century Delft to life as the backdrop for romance and jealousy in the context of family and class systems. Tracy Chevalier’s 1999 novel brings us in direct contact with the artist, era, and place in a way that even the successful movie could not. Anyone who has ever stared into the eyes of a great portrait and dreamily wondered, “Who is this person? What was he or she like? Why did the artists choose to paint him/her?” will understand the power of this celebrated novel.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind (France, mid-1700s)

A twisted and glorious fairytale set in prerevolutionary France, Patrick Süskind’s 1985 story tells us of of ill-born Grenouille, a wretched character with no scent of his own, but with an uncanny, savant-like ability to identify and create every aroma know to man. With a protagonist whose character and deeds rivals the greatest gothic anti-heroes, Perfume will bring you up close to and ultimately inside the mind of the madman—and all the beautiful and vile smells of a sad time and place.

True History of the Kelly Gang, Peter Carey (Australia, 1850-80)

Two-time Booker Prize winner (including one for this novel), Australian Peter Carey is a jack-of-all-trades when it comes to fiction who seems to effortlessly transition his work back and forth between historical and modern life and culture. His 2000 novel, True History of the Kelley Gang is a fictionalized autobiographical account of the outlaw Ned Kelly, his gang and their struggles against the oppressive British Empire. Presented as a found manuscript and true to the vocabulary and vernacular of the time, this riveting and poignant “Australian Western” will have you deeply engaged in a people’s struggle.

Cézanne’s Quarry,  Barbara Corrado Pope (France, 1880s)

How about a murder mystery in which the great artist Paul Cézanne is a suspect? With paintings functioning as clues, Barbara Corrado Pope’s 2008 novel reads like a noir thriller with plot twists and surprises worthy of Dashiell Hammett. Cézanne’s Quarry is a prime example of how placing a simple mystery in the context of a time of tremendous artistic and scientific transition can elevate a story beyond the traditional whodunit.

History of a Pleasure Seeker, Richard Mason (Holland, France, South Africa, late 1800s-early 1900s)

Exploring the grandness and fragility of the Belle Époque in Europe, History of a Pleasure Seeker is the new (2012) and marvelously crafted story of (fictional) Piet Barol’s rise from poverty to potential greatness. Clever and upward-reaching as he is charming and sensual, Richard Mason’s unforgettable lead character’s attention to the details of life light up this golden era (the creation of New York City’s iconic The Plaza Hotel even plays a role). Mason’s particularly adept with his unflinching depictions of Piet’s many sexual encounters, not always an easy task for a writer.

Enchantments, Kathryn Harrison (Russia, 1917)

As if the life of Gregori Rasputin and last days of the Romanovs aren’t mysterious enough by way of historical fact, Kathryn Harrison’s latest novel (2012) brings us deep inside the world of the last “first family” at the conclusion of Tsarist Russia. The story is told from the perspective of the Mad Monk’s eldest daughter, Masha, who was brought into the inner circle of the royal family after her father’s murder only to share the beginning of the storied monarchy’s end. With its rich and poetic language, Enchantments is both chilling and romantic (the book’s centerpiece is Masha’s unique relationship with youngest Romanov and heir to the throne, Alexei Nikolaevich), and teases out the humanity from the violence and upheaval of the revolutionary era.

The Stalin Epigram, Robert Little (Soviet Union, 1940s)

A bit of a sleeper, but a powerful and memorable read, The Stalin Epigram is a fictionalized account of the Russian poet Osip Mandeslstam’s defiance of Joseph Stalin. The story takes place during the height of dictator and murderer’s purges, deadly “collectivization” and silencing of voices across the Soviet Union. Robert Littell’s 2009 novel is narrated by the poet himself, as well by his wife and friends who together deliver the poetry, courage and intellectual expression that was so violently oppressed during such dark days.

The Art Student’s War, Brad Leithauser (Detroit, 1940s)

Set in wartime Detroit as the city made its ascent toward becoming a cultural and industrial giant of the 20th century—and before its epic fall in the last quarter of that same century—Brad Leithauser’s story is of a young woman and artist, whose pursuit of independence and the development of her own aesthetic collides with the realities of war and its cultural influences at home. The Art Student’s War has a calm urgency to it, giving us the feeling that we’re sitting on the precipice of new and more complicated era—indeed the one we inhabit today.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

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InPrint: John Irving is Angry – Again.

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InPrint: Small Packages: A Few Words on Short Stories and 6 Must-Read Collections

InPrint: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

Top image:  George M. Groutas, Prague Orloj (Prague Astrinical Clock), installed 1410

Photo: codepinkhq, Alice Walker, Washington DC, International Women’s Day demonstration, 2003

The post InPRINT: Once Upon a Time: Great Historical Fiction – 1 Genre, 10 Novels, 5 Centuries appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a book, sustain your mind.

John Irving is usually pissed off about something and more often than not this is a good thing. After all, there is much to be pissed off about.

I’ve seen the author speak quite a few times, the first of which was in the early 1980s, when he was experiencing what amounted to pre-traumatic stress disorder about the nascent Reagan Administration. Predicting the advent of a new and undiluted form of greed and the muscle-bound bullying of the most fragile among us, Irving was angry in such a way that I would have been scared to stand next to him lest I suffer an errant blow. (He was and still is a stout and strong man—a wrestler’s wrestler). Not to be too dramatic (I was young and a bit star-struck at the time), but I recall an almost John Brown-like, call-to-arms fervor. Think “author does bully pulpit.”

The last time I saw Irving was about 30 years later. He was on his book tour to support 2009’s Last Night in Twisted River, and I was treated to one of his infamous diatribes about how nothing truly “great” has been written since Hardy, how Hemingway was and remains some sort of disgrace to the art form, and how all that matters in fiction is plot and that Queequeg’s coffin was nothing but “a flotation device.” (“Don’t you understand?! That’s its only reason for it being there!”) He seemed perturbed by the notion that anyone would disagree with him on these issues.

His rant came off as pompous and overbearing, and turned a lot of us off that evening. (A friend and Irving fan left vowing never to read “that pretentious ass” again.) But his arrogant tone was somehow bigger than our upset (he’s a powerful speaker, with a somewhat domineering air) and no one dared speak up to perhaps ask some obvious questions: “Should we assume, Sir, that you’re excluding yourself from the ‘nothing great has been written in the last century’ analysis?” (He was probably just trying to get a rise out of us in the first place; Irving counts 20th Century greats Günter Grass and Kurt Vonnegut to be among the “fathers” of his work.) Or maybe this: “When did you last read For Whom the Bell Tolls and what did you find ‘simple’ and ‘ad copy-like’ about that book?” Or something along the lines of: “Mr. Irving, about that coffin in Moby-Dick, can we surmise then that a bear is just a bear? A wrestler just a wrestler?” (Two recurring, highly symbolic presences in a number of his novels.)

I know. Looking back, I feel a little cowardly. (Still star-stuck, perhaps?) In any case, I left the talk as certain as ever of this: Agree or disagree, John Irving always has an opinion, most often a strong one, and he is wholly unafraid to share it with the world. But that’s what we pay him for, right? This is certain too: John Irving’s aggressive thinking serves us—through his fiction—very well, indeed. His latest book, In One Person, an examination of (among other things) what it means to have “crushes on the wrong people,” is no exception.

The Right Side

His public appearances (wisely cast) aside, Irving’s intensity is channeled into and through his consistently brilliant work. Often subtle, sometimes intense, always absorbing, his books have a way of suddenly, out of nowhere, causing a massive and lingering lump to form in your throat; disappointment, sadness, anger, joy, all are brought to bear in pure and powerful forms through his extremely purposeful and well-honed storytelling.

Many call Irving contemporary America’s Charles Dickens. He’s clearly sharpened his pencil at the feet of the great master—and, like Dickens, Irving the yarn-spinner is angry for all the right reasons. For going on half a century, he has created epic tales of the vulnerable yet strong—and the heroism that can be found in the combination of those two qualities. Often misfits in one sense or another, Irving’s characters are champion outcasts offering up and celebrating the diversity inside and between us—a diversity that is so often exploited and turned to hate by intolerance. Yes, there’s a lot to be angry about.

From his memorable early novels (which he maddeningly diminished when he spoke of them that night in 2009), through the mammoth success of The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules and A Prayer for Owen Meany (I’ve heard each one of these referred to as the Great Modern American Novel), to his more complex, subtle and penetrating recent fiction, we’ve seen a progression of his talent and a fine-tuning of his messages. Despite the fact that his books are as diverse as his characters, a consistent thread emerges: John Irving has created and given loud and clear voices to some of fiction’s greatest cast-asides—real and figurative orphans of our culture.

When you experience Irving’s writing, you find yourself with the distinct feeling that you’re looking in the mirror. For the uninitiated, here’s how it seems to work: As we read these stories, we deeply identify with his central characters—no matter how off-center they seem to be. Their voices resonate too well and sound too much like you talking to yourself to seem in any way “other.” You—yes, we—are the misfits. And so it begins to dawn on us: The world— particularly our American home-team culture—is comprised of uniqueness; it is not the exception to the rule.

I remember reading the strange, sad and delightful The Hotel New Hampshire when I was a kid. I couldn’t get the photographs of the late genius Diane Arbus out of my head. Somehow, as in her disturbing work, the odd had become uncomfortably—and then comfortably—familiar. In the story, Irving serves up a sweaty lesbian in a bear suit, a brother and sister in lust, a suicidal dwarf writer—the bizarre roster goes on. As I read their stories, however, I began to think that this strangeness resembles who I am; I’m not a clean- and cookie-cut fascist who’s marching in lockstep into sameness. In Irving’s world, those bullies are out there, armed with injustice and guns and they aim to marginalize and even kill. But still, said this novel, we can fight back—and we can beat them. There is a potential for heroism in all of us. We just have to get pissed.

Irving’s anger at oppression (sexual, familial, societal, political, you name it) fuels all of his novels. It’s not always laid bare and red-faced, but it’s always poignantly present. And his indignation always seems to be on our behalf—reading him makes you feel somehow alright inside, like every foible and idiosyncrasy, every personal fetish, is okay and should be celebrated rather than buried. More than that, it is from these recesses that we can find and draw upon our inner strength. In One Person, for example, is the “memoir” of a bisexual man born in the 1950s that follows his story through to the present day (by way of the horrifying 1980s). It functions like a rifle shot aimed at sexual denial and its human consequences. As it’s put about the main character’s desire to become a writer (another of Irving’s recurring symbols), “it’s not a career choice.” You just are. Similarly, our lusts “just are” and to the extent that they harm no one else, they’re nothing to be ashamed of—in fact, they require our accepting embrace. Sexual oppression from without or within has dire results—protecting our very humanity is at stake. (Reagan didn’t even speak of AIDS until the last year of his presidency, by which time 20,849 people had died from the disease.)

Tolerating Intolerance

In the work of John Irving—whether it be the broad-bush, epic life sweeps of Garp or the more focused examination of identity issues of In One Person—the overarching themes are the same: what it means to be an underdog, the importance and meaning of overcoming adversity, and how we would be well-advised to accept each other in all our diverse forms. An exchange in the new book says a lot about the author’s most recent efforts. Of the narrator’s writing it is said: “The same old themes, but better done—the pleas for tolerance never grow tiresome.”

But wait, a quick epilogue: The quote continues: “Of course, everyone is intolerant of something or someone.” As for Irving on Hemingway and Hardy and all his wind about what fiction is and isn’t and should or shouldn’t be, I’ll leave him to his intolerances and continue to enjoy his practice of the craft. (By the way, my friend who swore him off has recently asked to borrow my copy of the new novel.) That’s just the great author being himself. To quote his latest one last time: “We are already who we are, aren’t we?” It’s best just to leave it at that.

John Irving has written 17 books and the Academy Award-winning screenplay for 1999’s movie version of The Cider House Rules. It’s tough to winnow them down to a short list—readers each have their favorites for so many personal reasons. Here are three of mine:

The Hotel New Hampshire (1981)

Coming off the success of The World According to Garp, which rocketed Irving to rock-star status among modern American writers, The Hotel New Hampshire was gobbled up by readers the instant it hit the streets (he subsequently found himself on the cover of Time magazine). The book lived up to its insanely tall order, delivering a story that entrances and absorbs with ingenious plot, and unique and powerful characters. Many of novel’s personae, such as John and Franny Berry, Susie the bear, Iowa Bob, Junior Jones, Chipper Dove and, yes, Sorrow the dog (“Sorrow floats”), have become archetypes of American fiction, representing the best and the worst of us, the weakest and strongest, the wicked and the wise.

Picking up on content from his previous novels, the book cemented some of Irving’s motifs in the national consciousness—soon after its publication, I first heard and understood the term “Irvingesque.” The story is of the Berry family, proprietors of a hotel in New England and then another in Vienna, where situations and characters parade before us with a “strange but true” essence that educates, entertains and alters the trajectories of the lives of the family members. Hilarious, gut wrenching and shocking (sometimes all at the same time), The Hotel New Hampshire chronicles survival (or not) in the face of the absurd and the horrible.

The Cider House Rules (1985)

One of Irving’s most high-profile novels (due largely to the great success of the wonderful movie starring Michael Caine and Tobey Maguire; Irving received an Academy Award for the screenplay), The Cider House Rules tells the story of a “special” orphan named Homer Wells. Set primarily in the 1940s, the book traces Homer’s life beginning with him growing up in an orphanage in Maine. There he is the receiver and witness of the work of the near-saintly Dr. Wilber Larch, who has dedicated his life to providing care for unwanted and unclaimed children, as well as safe abortions during a time when the procedure was still illegal. (I once heard Irving recall that upon reviewing his Larch character in a draft, he found the man to be “too good” to ring true. His solution: “I decided to give him an ether addiction.”)

Indebted to the great work of the good doctor, Homer nevertheless leaves “home” and embarks on a journey of self-discovery that leads him on a circuitous route through life as he navigates his emotional ties and personal desires. Irving’s exploration of marginalization and self-acceptance takes strong form here, and his delineation of hypocrisy, and what amounts to cultural crime (against women and children, in particular) has burned this story into the minds of many. (When a dear friend, a feminist activist and legislator, told me she considered this to be the modern “Great American Novel,” I understood exactly what she meant.)

A Widow for One Year (1998)

A three-part novel tracing the life of Ruth Cole, A Widow for One Year has a calmer darkness to it than Irving’s previous novels, even as it explores some of the same themes using some of the same devices (sudden death, rape, prostitution, the protagonist as a writer). We follow the life of Ruth in three sections, beginning with a challenged childhood in the 1950s where she suffers the loss of family members and the emotional absence of her parents. The second and third sections deal with Ruth’s life as an adult, trying to cope with the footprint of her youth and its impact on her relationships and lens through which she views her family and friends, the world at large and her career as a writer.

The novel has quiet power that’s different from the outrageousness of Garp and New Hampshire, where events unfold with a shock volume that can ring in your ears. Here—though similarly sprinkled and plot-driven by sudden and sometimes bizarre twists, incredulous characters that ring real despite their off-kilter behavior, and mini subplots that lead you out of the story, but around and back in again—the read elicits more reflection than reaction. In many ways, this is my favorite Irving novel—while I surrender some of the bombast and surface tics that I have grown to love in his work, the underlying messages and emotional explorations take up the space, leaving me smiling as much as laughing, sighing as much as crying, thinking as much dreaming.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: You Want Erotic? The Countless Shades of Anaïs Nin

InPrint: Small Packages: A Few Words on Short Stories and 6 Must-Read Collections

InPrint: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

Top image: Jane Sobel Klonsky

The post InPRINT: John Irving Is Angry—Again appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a book. Sustain your mind.

I confess that I knew where this was going when I bought Fifty Shades of Grey. One of my rules for this column is that I don’t write bad reviews (if I don’t like a book, I leave it be) and while I hoped to maybe have some fun with the BDSM bodice-ripper, I doubted that I would muster enough like to write about it here. (Having finished the book—the first of the phenom trilogy—I’m proved right. Nothing really to say about it that you probably haven’t already gathered.) But now that I have your attention, here’s the bait and switch: You want hot? Let’s talk Anaïs Nin.

Anyone who’s read Nin’s erotica likely has a vivid memory of their “first time,” as it were. I encountered the work when I was 14 years old. By then I had seen my share of dirty magazines and pre-internet (pre-cable, even) porn and was thus as misinformed and misinspired as any young person would be given such mostly poor data in. Then, in my father’s library, I found an advance copy of Delta of Venus. I read a few pages. Then I read more. This was different. This was beautiful and deep and, yes, perverse—and it was hot. I’ve been a fan ever since.

Most acclaimed for her magnificent and comprehensive diaries, Nin is almost a genre unto herself. Her life and career traversed continents (Europe to North America), cultural and social movements (bohemian Paris in the 1920s to the U.S. feminist movement in the 60s), and featured intimacy with many literary giants (most notably her one-time lover, confidante and friend Henry Miller). For better or worse, her erotic writings—released primarily in two volumes of short stories published posthumously in the late-1970s (Delta of Venus and Little Birds)—have eclipsed her other work in terms of bringing her international notoriety. For many, in fact, the mere whisper of her name—Anaïs—is synonymous with erotica.

She completed the majority of her work in this genre during difficult financial times in the 1940s. A mysterious “collector” contracted her, Miller and a small cadre of their contemporaries to write pornography for him on a fee-per-page basis. All told, Nin claimed she received $100 for these stories. At the time, she was uneasy with the effort, which by order required the group to “leave out the poetry” and “focus on the specifics.” (“Didn’t the old man know how words carry colors and sounds into the flesh?” she laments in the preface of Delta.)

Regardless of the collector’s instructions, Nin was incapable of writing “clinically.” Her language flourishes as, both individually and as a body of work, her erotic tales swerve and soar in and out of the body and the soul, exposing countless emotions while always circling back to a titillated heartbeat. In Nin’s world, roles and role-play do more than arouse the characters and the reader alike—they also beg questions about fantasy and identity. Perversions—exhibitionism and voyeurism, blurred lines between pleasure and pain, and other unmentionables—exist on a razor-thin line between playful light and borderline psychotic darkness. Shades? Nuance? It’s all here.

Conversely, some of the stories depict the suppression of sexual thought as exploding into inhuman violence. (In one very difficult piece featuring a priest at a strict boarding school and his unfortunate charges, a rape is perpetrated in this context.) Indeed, in this work you’ll find a broad exploration of the psychology of sexuality (another story features a hyper-sexualized reaction to a Spanish Fly placebo). The effects of childhood experience, and issues around intimacy and objectification—and the relationship and opposition between them—are pried open. Additionally, in her very powerful short novel, A Spy in the House of Love, Nin focuses on adultery and its relationship to self-exploration.

None of this is to say that Nin’s stories aren’t erotic for eroticism’s sake. The circumstance of their writing is partly responsible for this, although not completely. The author is a woman who was clearly unafraid of not only her own observations of human sexual thinking and behavior, but of herself, as well. Her stories stare at sex. They don’t flinch and they don’t blush (although her characters might). And, perhaps most important, she does not judge.

A Woman’s Language

Despite the stories’ quality, for years Nin carried distaste for them and the patron for whom they were written, and “put the erotica aside.” (“Dear Collector: We hate you. Sex loses all its power and magic when it becomes explicit, mechanical, overdone. It becomes a bore.”) Later in her life, however, she began to see the work in a different light. Having once thought that her charge to “leave out the poetry” had resulted in a style that was “derived from a reading of men’s works,” she changed her mind, concluding, “My own voice was not completely suppressed… I was intuitively using a woman’s language, seeing sexual experience from a women’s point of view.” In the end, she seemed to see her own irrepressible voice (I’ll call it brilliance) shining through the perverted (I use the term advisedly) challenge. The collections, she determined, would be published.

Nin’s wrestling with her erotica begs all sorts of questions. As much as some of us might want to see great work as simply great, voice, theme and even plot are all inexorably (though I think too often seen as overwhelmingly) informed by gender—and certainly by individuality. Nin felt this was particularly true when it came to writing about sex:

I knew there was a great disparity between Henry Miller’s explicitness and my ambiguities—between his humorous, Rabelaisian view of sex and my poetic descriptions of sexual relationships… I had a feeling that Pandora’s box contained the mysteries of woman’s sensuality, so different from a man’s and for which man’s language was inadequate.

Indeed, there’s another story here, for another time, which explores why women and men handle erotica so differently (as writers as well as readers). In any case, legions of fans of every sex and sexual orientation will attest to that fact that Nin holds up well for anyone who wants to explore the genre—though each reader will, of course, experience the work through his or her own particular lens. (Now is a good time, I suppose, for “the warning”: Anaïs Nin’s erotica is not for everyone.)

With respect to E.L. James and her wildly successful Fifty Shades trilogy, it’s not really fair to make a comparison to Nin (and from what I understand, she makes no claims to literary gianthood). And to be more than fair (call it diplomatic), bravo to her for getting her novels out there—and if she has succeeded in stirring up a sexually languid reading populace, that’s no small accomplishment. And know this: Writing erotica is difficult. Describing the Big It and the Big O (et al) can challenge the most generous of vocabularies as well as the most fanciful style. But this once again speaks to Nin’s dominance in the genre: She somehow manages to never throw out single a line that will leave you laughing at its triteness. (If you laugh, it’s because she wants you to. There are no accidents in her work.)

Further, if you want to argue that Nin’s pieces are simply short abstracts when compared to the thrust (pardon me) of the bodice-ripper approach to the sensual, I have to say Nin scores here again—her collections are utterly absorbing. Intrigue abounds, characters appear and reappear throughout the work, themes are opened, danced around, poked at and examined from myriad angles. As short story collections, Delta of Venus and Little Birds really hold up well; these are books you will not skim.

Finally (and perhaps of course), Nin even circles back on the genre itself and explores the role of erotica in (some of) our lives. In Delta, her character Elena opens D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. The description of Elena’s experience with the novel might have you believe that Nin was speaking directly to the audience that James’ Fifty Shades seems to have tapped into:

[Elena] discovered that she had never known the sensations described by Lawrence, and second, that this was the nature of her hunger. But there was another truth she was now fully aware of. Something had created in her a state of perpetual defense against the very possibilities of experience, an urge for flight which took her away from the scenes of pleasure and expansion. She had stood many times on the very edge, and then had run away. She herself was to blame for what she had lost, ignored.

It was the submerged woman of Lawrence’s book that lay coiled within her, at last exposed, sensitized, prepared as if by a multitude of caresses for the arrival of someone.

Yes. Yes.

Delta of Venus, 1978, and Little Birds, 1979

The two celebrated collections written for the infamous patron who famously instructed, “Leave out the poetry,” are nothing if not poetic. Infused with sexual philosophy, moral ambiguity and emotional exploration, perversion accompanies the lovely, objectification dances with intimacy, and sensuality erupts from both the loving and the painful. Whether strong and rich archetypes or bundles of unpredictable subtlety, the characters are riveting as we watch them dare to push themselves—and us as willing voyeurs—to the edges of sexual exploration.

A Spy in the House of Love, 1954

The novel emerges from the mind of Sabina, a married woman involved in a number of adulterous affairs, who sees herself a “spy” or witness to her own experiences. Nin’s dreamy, yet unflinching style (that also lends itself so well her erotic writings) creates an intense psychological atmosphere, where the reader crawls inside the thought processes and sensitivities of a woman as she betrays the man she loves in order to explore her own personal nuances. An ethereal, semi-autobiographical tale that offers an intimate view into a woman’s complicated life. (Excerpted from “10 Must-Read Books for Girls and Boys, by Boys and Girls.”)

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: Small Packages: A Few Words on Short Stories and 6 Must-Read Collections

InPrint: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

Images: myjustliving, hoodedutilitarian, goodreads, moniquespassions

The post InPRINT: You Want Erotic? The Countless Shades of Anaïs Nin appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a short story. Sustain your mind.

Once upon a time, I thought short stories were just for us kids – mini-books for mini-people, kind of like the lamb chops my mother fed me when she was serving steaks to the “big people” at the table. I figured what was on my plate was the same stuff as theirs, just kid-sized – a perfect portion for my (relatively) tiny self. Of course, it turns out that short stories are about as different an animal from long-form novels as lamb is from beef. Turns out, too, that they can be acquired taste – one that, to be honest, took me a long time to come around to.

Over the years I’ve discovered I’m not alone. Just this morning, in fact, a friend (a voracious reader) asked me what this week’s column was going to cover. When I told him “short stories,” I got a sigh followed by a quick (and somewhat terse), “Oh, well, I’ll look forward to your next one, then.”

“Not into short stories?” I asked.

“Nope,” he said. ‘They’re too…uh… short.” It’s a sentiment I’ve come across a lot, from casual and dedicated readers alike. It got me thinking about how I finally – and somewhat begrudgingly – have come around to the form.

In those single-digit days, wonderful (and digestible) classroom reading included the likes of The Ransom of Red Chief and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, memorable short works from O. Henry and Washington Irving, respectively. These functioned not only as entertainment, but also as an introduction to literature (the pump having been primed at an even earlier age by Aesop, Hans Christian Anderson and a host of other great “children’s” authors). In many ways, the only form I knew was short, but I was nevertheless delighted to make the jump from spoon-fed to self-inflicted fiction, desiring to receive my stories on my own terms.

I grew frustrated with short stories as a teenager as I began to feel a sense of constriction when reading even the best of them. Characters seemed underdeveloped, plot lines abbreviated, the distance between “once upon a time” and “the end” maddeningly compressed. It’s not that short was dumb (Salinger‘s stories rocked), but there was only so much an author could do in so few pages (I thought). Meanwhile, my first novels were proving to be intensely compelling.

I realize now that I was being trained to process fiction “Dickens style” – not a bad thing on its surface, but a perspective that didn’t leave a lot of room for quick takes or fragment-like construction, among other approaches to storytelling. Indeed, poetry and experimental prose were also off the table back then; for the most part it was go long or not at all. Eventually my reading time became almost exclusively dedicated to novels, and I gladly chose For Whom the Bells Tolls over Hills Like White Elephants, Jay Gatsby over Benjamin Button, Holden over Sergeant X.

Looking back, I feel like I missed out—I wish my teachers had used short stories (and collections) as more than a springboard for reading longer novels. (By late high school, we were done with Nine Stories and well into Moby Dick.) Today, my knowledge of short fiction by renowned greats such as Raymond Carver, John Cheever and even Dorothy Parker (unforgettable quotes aside), is limited at best, much to the chagrin of many of my better-read friends. Sure, I picked up collections here and there over the years (from Hemingway and Flannery O’Conner to John Updike and Ann Beattie), but I almost always opted for a novel when I had an option.

In recent years, however, I’ve revisited the short story form, in part due to pressure from those friends I mentioned, (some of whom have an almost cult-like love for the approach). And here’s the deal: I’ve discovered that all along I have been looking at this kind of fiction through the wrong lens. I know I’m speaking extremely broadly, but it is precisely their abbreviated length that makes short stories work the way they do. They’re different from novels and when read as something other than mini-tales, they jump off the page in a whole new kind of high relief.

A couple of observations for you fellow resisters out there: When reading short stories, consider that “negative space” – what isn’t said – becomes intensely critical and powerful. Take just a few minutes (another nice thing about short stories) and read Hemingway’s Hills (trust me) and ask yourself, “What exactly is the procedure they’re talking about? What does the lack of directness mean and how does it make you feel?” More: What did the father do to the boy in Philipp Meyer’s gripping One Day This Will All Be Yours? In John Collier’s beloved The Chaser, what was it about the old man’s curious mixtures? More so than in more elaborated fictions, in stories like these you find yourself providing your own context and ideas – your imagination becomes an absolutely critical part of (even the plot) experience. Yeah. That works for me.

Another great aspect of short fiction is that brevity lends itself well to presenting summations and snapshots of themes and plots. Just like life, right? I mean, aside from the work of some notable authors, we generally don’t think or experience or even remember in novel-like form (which conversely is one of the things that can be so compelling about a good, long book), but rather in bits and shards and self-prioritized life-bites. Like poems, short stories tap into our collage-oriented, postmodern minds. Even stories that cover a lot of ground (must) offer washes and inferences to paint larger pictures and elicit deep feelings. Indeed, today I see short stories in many ways like I do poems. I’m not there for a “traditional” narrative in first place. I read them to get a feeling. And the best collections of stories result in a very powerful emotional response that novels sometimes just can’t accomplish.

I still have to force myself to reach for a short story collection over the next “book” on my list. But recently I did just that and once again I was handsomely rewarded. (Ironically, though, I read Adam Levin’s fabulous Hot Pink not only because I heard nothing but great things, but also because I just couldn’t bear to pick up his much-lauded debut novel, The Instructions, which weighs in at 1,030 pages.) In fact, it was this collection (covered below) that inspired this column.

Here are six collections that might turn you on to the form (give it a chance) or, if you’re already a fan, you might have overlooked. There’s one from each of the last five decades, plus one released last year that spans the career of one of our most celebrated novelists.

Distortions, Ann Beattie (1976)

Profound, intense and often funny, yet submerged in a malaise that defined an era, Ann Beattie’s debut collection reads fresh in today’s fragmented and technologically fueled “here, but apart” world. The usual workaday aspects of characters’ lives are tinged with the strange, as simple worlds want to be. With the mundane functioning as petri dish, Beattie grows and exposes our odd attempts and failures at connection and meaning (divorce and adultery are themes here) in a middle-class world. Published when she was 29, Distortions (released the same year as her first novel, Chilly Scenes of Winter) immediately established the author as an unflinching whistleblower of that “Me” generation.

Girl with Curious Hair, David Foster Wallace (1989)

Published two years after his decidedly “audacious” first novel, The Broom of the System, David Foster Wallace’s debut short story collection showed (showed off, some said) the versatility and extreme intelligence that would mark his sadly shortened career and earn him a legion of zealous fans. In Girl with Curious Hair, Wallace paints a cultural portrait of fixation, obsession and celebrity (from Alex Trebek to David Letterman) against a backdrop of our yearning and reaching for love and intimacy – and he does all this in wholly unpredictable ways that can have you utterly transfixed one moment and out of breath the next. Using popular media touchstones in combination with deeply idiosyncratic characters, Wallace exposes and pulls apart human desires with his signature observational focus and wit.

Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)

Her third collection of short stories, Birds of America solidly established Lorrie Moore as one of the great short story writers of our generation – and one of the most popular, as well. This New York Times bestseller goes deep and dark, while maintaining an intelligent sense of humor. The combination allows us to stare at and even enjoy these troubled characters as they navigate lives where the line between stable and painfully untethered is sometimes suddenly, and sometimes subtly blurred. Moore’s gift of language is riveting – you’ll roll sentences around in your mind and repeat them out loud for their cadence and truth. From their sexual frustrations to their family “issues,” Moore’s protagonists are at once utterly unique and instantly recognizable – a reader’s dream.

Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage, Alice Munro (2001)

To many, Alice Munro is hands-down the greatest working master of the short story form. Each new collection by the Canadian author is snapped up, scrutinized and lavished with critical praise. Munro’s female protagonists in Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage each embody a complex, yet fundamental internal struggle between universal recognizable poles – family and independence, home and away, personal identity and the weight of interpersonal relationships. Munro’s stories have an emotional span to them that goes beyond the full lifetimes they sometimes portray. Also assisting is the Canadian landscape, which provides a sparse stage that allows emotions to register in a very pure form – an unmistakable and wholly accessible style.

Hot Pink, Adam Levin (2011)

The literary world is staring at Adam Levin. How could they not? His first novel, massive and reportedly brilliant in both concept and language (The Instructions, 2010) was met with immediate acclaim and comparisons to the late David Foster Wallace. Mercifully, Levin’s follow up, Hot Pink, is a wonderfully manageable, wildly creative and deeply insightful collection of short stories. Love is a theme (though an extremely unreliable ally) for Levin’s characters as they march through personal changes, fate and life’s pure weirdness, all the while trying to stay upright and attempting to anchor to something – anything – that might prevent them from drifting away. Oh, and his wordsmithing? You’ll set this book down more than once, smiling and shaking your head – clever. Very clever.

The Angel Esmeralda, Don DeLillo (2011)

A collection of stories from America’s postmodern master, The Angel Esmeralda – Nine Stories brings together the author’s short-form work from 1979 to 2011. Both within themselves and taken together as a collection, these snapshot tales present the often abstract and fragmented darkness that hovers over our transition from the 20th to the 21st Century. Some see Don DeLillo’s work as prescient, but a more accurate description is unflinchingly mirror-like, allowing every trick of modern hyper-light to illuminate our way forward. Each story here pokes at often-mundane instances and interactions, fascinations and obsessions that are arrestingly lifelike in both chance and relevance. (From “Book ’Em: 10 Best Reads From 2011.”)

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All

InPrint: 10 Novels that Make You Want to Play Outside

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

Top image: colindunn

The post InPRINT: Small Packages: A Few Words on Short Stories and 6 Must-Read Collections appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a book. Sustain your mind.

I’m torn, often and about many things, including protests in the street. Make no mistake; I do support the movement(s) and those souls who hit the pavement (hello, Occupy) to make a newer and better world. I understand and have seen the power of dissent and today, with the issue of moving forward or backward once again looming large, I know I should be out there.

Yet it’s not unreasonable to ask, “Does it matter?” The world is an absurd place of cruel whims and monstrous scope, and finally, as the great humorist George Carlin once observed, “the planet will shake us off like a bad case of fleas.” Given that the deck is by definition stacked against us (a delightful afterlife aside, if you wish), what can one really do and why, in fact, should we do anything at all? Go ahead and cue the snarky guffaws, but here’s the question: To be or not to be? It’s a good one, right?

Among other notables, Albert Camus (1913-1960) gave the query quite a go. In his Nobel Prize winning novels (along with his numerous short stories, plays and essays), the great (and oh so cool) French writer-philosopher examined authenticity and rebellion in the face of the power, the potential of the individual in an absurd and painful world, and the choices we all face about how (and if) to play the hands we’re so arbitrarily dealt. Good stuff. Serious stuff. Stuff that we would do well to revisit every once in a while as we watch the news and try to decide, “What is to be done.”

What’s special about Camus’ timeless stories is that they’re unafraid. Unafraid not only to present and confess our flaws in the context of life’s Sisyphean nature (his characters tend to be human, as opposed to traditionally heroic; some kind, some indifferent, some truly awful), but also unafraid to have us somehow march bravely on, albeit into a relentless wind of frigid and life-numbing “abstractions” (to Camus, generalizations rob the world of its humanity and nuance, and distort reality on the ground).

The three novels published during his lifetime (tragically cut short by a car accident) were The Stranger, The Plague and The Fall. Staples today in both literature and philosophy departments around the world, each has its own angle, coming at the Big Question(s) as different thought experiments staffed by particular personality types. The Stranger is the story of Meursault, an honest yet indifferent and unemotional man who finds himself accused of murder. The Plague tells us of Doctor Bernard Rieux’s work and life in Oran, a city decimated by death and cut off from the outside world. Finally, The Fall is the confession of Jean-Baptiste Clamence, a well-respected citizen whose unflinching self-reflection leads to his own demise. (More on these titles below.)

The novels could hardly be called a triptych (though on a recent read I did notice a reference in The Plague to events in The Stranger), but together they circle around a single maypole of life’s hardest facts – events are often beyond our control, and absurdity, pain and even horror are part of the human experience – and beg the question of how to behave in light of such truths. The challenges of empathy, compassion and, ultimately, action are not easily met, of course, and it is in the stutter step between thought and deed that Camus finds his – indeed, our – drama. It’s a drama I recalled when I watched Iraq War veteran Scott Olsen on television as he lay bleeding in Oakland last October, a victim of rubber bullets unleashed by police during an Occupy rally.

Today, the Left and the Right do battle to the degree where progress (or even ideology) no longer matters as much as winning. Science deniers are at war with environmentalists as the ice caps continue to melt. Totalitarianism, racism, sexism, class warfare—all continue to draw our blood just as they did in Camus’ day and throughout history before him. And worse still, all of these events are simply absorbed (if not partly orchestrated) by a corporate class so dominant that we don’t even know what the light of day might look like anymore. I don’t mean to be a buzzkill, but just as Camus’ characters were challenged, the question continues to be begged: Beyond even what to do—why do anything at all?

Camus’ fiction offers us two essential lenses through which to view the problem. First, the stories somehow stir up a compassion for ourselves and our existential dilemma that has us so torn about taking action given Carlin’s irritated dog observation. (Sorry, but you knew the “ism” was coming. For the record, Camus denied being that particular “ist.”) It’s not easy to jump into action every time your head tells you to, as life is not, it turns out, abstract. (Indeed, Camus himself entered a self-imposed intellectual exile during the last years of his life when he could not bring himself to side with the anti-colonialists in his native Algeria. His mother still lived there, he explained.)

Second, and most important, Camus refused to accept the question in terms of party or politics (Camus famously broke from his friend Jean-Paul Sartre when he took issue with the Communist Party’s approach to world changing), or “winning” (a fool’s quest) or even some objective good versus evil (Camus was an atheist). Rather, he dares you to act from your best lights, for no reason that can be known aside from what’s between you and you. The answer, he wants us to consider, is to be. For its own sake.

(Re)read Camus when you can. His novels are accessible and eloquent masterpieces, presenting big ideas and brimming with allegory. And here’s the good part – they’re totally entertaining. Riveting, even. And they’re guaranteed to get you asking the Big Question.

The Stranger (1942)

The story of Meursault, a French Algerian who tells of the events in his life with an emotionless indifference to, among other notable happenings, the death of his mother, The Stranger was Camus’ first novel. The main character’s mater-of-fact narration and tone present a man functioning only with the most coldly perceived understanding of what’s going on around him. Almost completely void of feeling, his detachment leaves him an outsider, or stranger, in his community, at once free from societal rules and yet helpless as a bobbing cork, as the storyline washes him this way and that. The novel pivots around his seemingly inexcusable murder of a local man and his inability to process responsibility or defend himself against those seeking to punish him for his actions. An exploration of free will and responsibility, The Stranger is spare and quiet, allowing fundamental philosophical ideas to appear in high relief while at the same time revealing Camus’ great storytelling capabilities.

The Plague (1947)

The Algerian coastal city of Oran is occupied (as wartime France is by Nazi Germany) by bubonic plague in this tale of human resilience in the face of an obscene and powerful enemy. Under this basic yet wildly intense premise, the city becomes Camus’ laboratory for an exploration of human behavior in the framework of life as possessed by random and cruel forces, requiring resistance in any possible form. The story revolves around Dr. Bernard Rieux, who helps lead the fight against the plague for no reason other than it’s his job to reduce human suffering. As abstract forces ranging from bureaucracy to religion saddle others around him, Rieux surfaces as driven by his own personal compact, unencumbered in his efforts to do the next right thing. A rich and gripping read, many consider The Plague to be Camus’ greatest masterwork.

The Fall (1956)

Camus’ last novel to be published during his lifetime (two others were published after his death), The Fall is the confession of self-appointed “judge-penitent” Jean-Baptiste Clamence. He tells his story to a stranger in a bar in post-war Amsterdam, beginning with his background as a successful and honorable defense lawyer (working on behalf of widows and orphans) in Paris. Through a series of random events, Clamence is exposed to his own hypocrisy and thus initiates what becomes a purposeful self-undoing as he attempts to bring his world into alignment with his own deep and human flaws. The once-great man pulls at the string of his inner failings to surely unravel his world and take charge of his own expulsion from his false Eden. As we listen in astonishment, we are confronted with the price of hubris and challenged by the weight of personal responsibility in a dark world where innocence is lost and rules are nonexistent.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly column, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: 10 Novels that Make You Want to Play Outside

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

Top image: Mitmensch0812

The post InPRINT: Albert Camus and the Biggest Question of All appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a book. Sustain your mind.

In yet another new chapter of “What’s Going on Upstairs,” it seems that scientists have had a virtual breakthrough in figuring out what fiction does to our brains. Recent studies show that reading about a made-up event can trigger the same neuro-bells and whistles as does taking part in an actual event. That is to say, when we read, “See Spot run,” we in some ways experience Spot running. With this in mind, given that it’s Earth Month, let us consider how certain stories can make us feel as if we’re soaring through the air, splashing in the sea or, for the more grounded among us, happily playing in the dirt.

But first, let’s agree with our friends in the lab (no deniers here). There’s no doubt that certain words and well-crafted sentences can have a similar effect on our minds as does the smell of fresh-baked bread, taking us to a time and place far beyond where we are when the reading experience occurs. And that’s the point, right? We often read books to escape our current experience and trade it in for another. Moreover, in many of the best novels, place functions as a character in and of itself, complete with attributes that go beyond backdrop to both embody and tease all five senses; whether it be Paris or Pi’s pontoon, the venue of a novel informs how we “feel” about a story and allows us to “go along” with the action.

So let’s celebrate novels that take us outside – tales that get our tails off the couch, out of the library and up from our lounge chair (yes, a beach read implies that you’re outside, but you know what we mean) and take us someplace else—namely, someplace without a roof. Enclosed please find deserts, jungles and mountains, oceans and rivers, blue skies and lush valleys…

1. Death Comes for the Archbishop, Willa Cather (1927)

A natural and majestic silence pervades Willa Cather’s story of Bishop Jean Marie Latour and Josh Vaillant’s humble mid-19th century journey from the Midwest to a newly established Catholic diocese in New Mexico Territory. From the onset, as the two travel first to the Gulf of Mexico before heading out into the Native American frontier, Death Comes for the Archbishop captures a feeling that is pristine, nascent and dry – a pure presentation of the American West on the eve of conquest. Reading the novel, you get a deep sense of (mis?)guided faith as you witness the two men’s plodding entrance into a new and largely undisturbed world. Every village, mesa, path and stone along the way is offered up for examination and contemplation. In contrast to later, typical Western novels where the outward thrust is violent and clumsily unobservant, Cather allows us to clearly see the trail upon which our nation was to tread.

2. The Dharma Bums, Jack Kerouac (1958)

Dash, gallop and hop-skip from San Francisco to the Sierra Nevada with Ray Smith (Kerouac) and Japhy Ryder (based on the author’s friend, Zen Buddhist and Beat poet Gary Snyder) as they whoop and hike their way out of city life in a search of transcendence. Booted and ruck-sacked, these are perhaps Kerouac’s most “holy” characters. The plot of The Dharma Bums rises up, almost panting, as Kerouac’s signature freestyle prose is ideal for delivering the air and sounds of those epiphanies that only happen in nature. Even at rest, you’re there with them to catch your breath: “The yard was full of tomato plants about to ripen, and mint, mint, everything smelling of mint, and one fine old tree that I loved to sit under on those cool perfect starry California October nights unmatched anywhere in the world.”

3. Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach (1970)

“It was morning, and the new sun sparkled gold across the ripples of a gentle sea.” This is the poetic and unforgettable opening to this beautiful tale of rebellion, self-seeking and joyous aerial defiance. Jonathan Livingston Seagull flies both with and against the wind, and has touched millions of readers in that unforgettable, “I remember exactly where and when I read it” way. Richard Bach’s simple tale of the young hero bird is perhaps the closest you’ll ever to come to flying without leaving the ground. Each time he ascends from the confines of the earth, he takes us along with him to feel the assistance and challenge of every breeze and gust that affects his every… single… feather.

4. The Clan of the Cave Bear, Jean Auel (1980)

Twenty-thousand years fail to distance us from the rich natural textures and challenges described by Jean Auel in her story of a chance coming together of a Cro-Magnon girl and a tribe of Neanderthals. You can almost smell the dank caves, primal mud and lush forests of the prehistoric landscape that hosts Ayla and her adoptive clan, as they navigate the edge of the era’s Ice Age. The first of the author’s Earth’s Children series, The Clan of the Cave Bear was based, according to Auel, on a great deal of research, with resulting language that allows us to trust (some have said too much so) the story’s historical backdrop and crawl into the cave of prehistory to enjoy a page-turning plot that, given the success of the series’ ensuing novels, may likely leave you craving more.

5. Water Music, T.C. Boyle (1982)

The first novel of the always funny and insanely observant T. Coraghessan Boyle, Water Music is an historical and satirical examination of two sadly misguided, yet somehow majestic and even glorious tragic heroes—conman Ned Rise and the great adventurer Mungo Park. Taking place largely in Imperial British West Africa, the novel’s lavish language and plot are as twisted as its main characters who come together in the late-1770s/early-1800s in a quest to find fame and fortune—and the source of the Niger River. Tapping into the imagination of discovery, the relationship between the reader and the novel’s landscape—notably the river itself—is cemented early on and lasts through to the (fabulously) bitter end. Guaranteed you’ll find yourself more than once wiping the sweat off your brow in heat of the African day.

6. Galápagos, Kurt Vonnegut (1985)

Back to the sea. That’s where our “big brains” have gotten us in this ghostly accounted, post-apocalyptic tale of the last humans (among them Mick Jagger and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis) and the evolutionary de-evolution that follows our gravest mistakes. What have we become? Wiser perhaps, but mercifully less brainy, the new humans of Galápagos are flippered creatures who hunt with their snouts, and are generally less capable than their ancestors who were, needless to say, occupied with ill-advised tasks like bomb making and facilitating global warming. Like all great Vonnegut tomes, we’re treated here to his rare form of fanciful pessimism, which in some weird way rings optimistic. A maestro of simplicity and irony, the author’s language transports us ethically and emotionally in terms of our relationship with our natural world.

7. Ishmael, Daniel Quinn (1992)

With the natural world embodied in the form of a giant Gorilla/Socratic instructor, Ishmael is Daniel Quinn’s philosophical manifesto as much as it is a novel. The story retells history through a stunningly fresh and clear lens that exposes, point-by point, the illusion of human greatness and superiority as a fantastic and cataclysmic lie. Zeroing directly in on the Bible and the great stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, the book’s teacher unfurls for the narrator new explanations and interpretations of events and roles that allow him (and us) to rethink humanity’s relationship with the environment. While this story doesn’t so much take us outside, per se, it offers a new view of who we are here on this earth and our role in sustaining what is not ours.

8. Into the Wild, Jon Krakauer (1996)

A biography that reads like a mystery (sorry for foray out of fiction here, but you can file this one under “you cannot make this stuff up”), the great chronicler Jon Krakauer invites us to join him in his effort to understand the life of Christopher McCandless. Later made into a truly great movie (in 2007), Into the Wild takes us along on the 24-year-old’s life walkabout, which culminated in his disappearing into the Alaskan wilderness with a 10-pound bag of rice. The journey is one of self-actualization attained by pushing, poking and prodding the natural world a in way that calls upon the painful alchemy of exposure and danger. Somehow this cautionary tale both beckons and warns, presenting the dichotomy of risk and reward in a way that leaves us breathless and wondering what self-discovery is worth.

9. Last Night in Twisted River, John Irving (2009)

Probably too often (and sloppily) referred to as the American Charles Dickens (and a more symbolic and postmodern writer than he would like to admit), John Irving is known for plot brilliance and character development nonpareil. His powerful talents, when turned upon the natural world and how we negotiate it – namely here, New Hampshire’s Androscoggin River and the logging professionals who work on its shores and in its waters – are a literary force to be reckoned with. Last Night in Twisted River’s time on and along the water drives the story forward with Irving’s characteristic power and engagement. While there, we are inside the camps, towns and forests of the Northeast for the plot-developing twists and turns of the author’s 12th and perhaps most natural world-oriented novel.

10. State of Wonder, Ann Patchett (2011)

Reading this story of a Minnesota physician who chases her past and future up the Amazon River, one cannot help but think of the great Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (if you haven’t read it, think Apocalypse Now without the napalm). Indeed, we feel in our guts the upriver suction that possesses Marina Singh as she searches for answers surrounding the fever-caused death of a colleague who succumbed while searching for a mysterious and brilliant pharmaceutical specialist who has disappeared into her “research.” Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder is a page-turner (the plot flows as deliberately as the river itself), and you’re sure to feel the heat and bugs and hot rain as you see “civilization drop away again and again” into a jungle that breathes a single color: “The sky, the water, the bark of the trees: everything that wasn’t green became green.”

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly feature, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: Gatsby, Paradise and the 1% – F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Pre-Occupation

InPrint: Not for Kids Only – 10 Young Adult Novels You Need to Read

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

InPrint: Les Histoires De Paris & Two Novel Additions

Top image: Zach Welty

The post InPRINT: 10 Novels That Make You Want to Play Outside appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnRead a short book. Sustain your mind.

When I was a teenager, I related more to books than I did to most other kids – and certainly to most adults. There was something about Huck and Holden and Ponyboy and their stories that was more real to my inner thought-space than were the characters who populated my adolescent landscape – teachers who didn’t get it, kids and cliques who judged without so much as a hint of eye contact, adults who seemed to have long forgotten the angst of their own youth.

Great fiction (whose net was cast wide enough to include my age group) didn’t talk down to me. It didn’t mock or tease or obfuscate. The characters were my comrades – respectful, smart and compassionate, and in some private way, just between them and me, they seemed to have my back. They respected both my sensibilities and civil rights. They were mature like me, of course, and they spoke the way I spoke inside my head – indignantly, sometimes with rage, yet often with a fearlessness that I didn’t possess. They unraveled their worlds to understand the wrongness of their shame and guilt and I was grateful to have them to show me the way through difficult times.

Great fiction is just that – great fiction. And great characters, regardless of their age or yours, always illuminate your way. Speaking on behalf of my inner kid and his fictional comrades, what was and is now designated as “Young Adult” literature is not, contrary to popular belief, a genre that’s dumbed down, a mere pat on the head for all those precious little readers out there. What it is is literature that happens to examine subject matter through characters that appeal to teens.

What does this mean? According to Katie MacBride, of the Mill Valley [CA] Public Library, who helped me compile the list below, what adults don’t get (especially those engaged in the twisted and ongoing battle to censor what teens see and read, including virtually every book included here) is that young adults live – wait for it – here on Earth, just like us, and not in some sterilized prep-room for “real” life. “Personal crises, sex and gender issues, violence, class warfare, politics – they experience and have to process it all,” she says. “If a book truly reaches young people, it’s a great book – and it will likely reach you too.” Amen. Unless of course, you somehow lost your depth as you grew older. (A concept that perhaps is more common than we’d like to admit.)

Arresting plotline? Universal themes? Relatable characters? Forget the “target age group” and dig in. Here are 10 books (an insanely partial list) even mature adults need to read – or reread, as the case may be. I know not every Young Adult title (specifically, for ages 12-17) is right for “Adult” Adults, but these are. (Oh, and we don’t do spoilers here. So read on…)

Some Stalwarts: Three Classics

Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger (1951) – Mark Twain’s Huck Finn aside, Salinger’s masterpiece is perhaps the greatest “crossover” novel of all time. Here, in a work not specifically directed at a young audience, we see through the eyes of the everlasting and ultimately relatable 17-year-old Holden Caulfield, the embodiment of teenage angst and alienation. His flashback story exposes cultural and interpersonal superficiality, and explores the challenge of maintaining authenticity in a postmodern world.

Lord of the Flies, William Golding (1954) – The story of a group of young boys forced to create their own civilization on a deserted island is a perfect lens for the examination of the greatest and most horrifying human impulses. The struggle between the urges to live and function as a society and the lure of power and corruption is front and center in this classic novel that’s as much about grand human needs, desires and flaws as it is about anything specific to teenage years.

The Chosen, Chiam Potok (1967) – Set in the insular microcosm of the Jewish community of 1940s Brooklyn, New York, this celebrated novel explores issues of friendship, family and diversity, and the struggle to find oneself in a world where entrenched forces have the power to lock in an individual’s destiny. Fifteen-year-olds Bobby and Danny represent a sort of yin and yang existence, and the trials of their relationship offer timeless insights that reach far beyond their age and culture.

New Tales for New Times: Three More for the Canon

The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993) – Joining the lofty ranks of 1984, Brave New World and A Handmaid’s Tale, this great dystopian achievement presents a bleak future as seen through the eyes of a 12-year-old boy named Jonas. Occupying a pivotal role in his pathologically calculated society, Jonas functions as a bridge between the memories of the old world and the blankness of the new as it is forcibly transitioned to a horrifying “Sameness.” Like it’s heralded predecessors, this novel offers us a look at where we are as a society and what we are becoming.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky (1999) – A series of letters written by a high school freshman reveals the challenges he faces as he tries to merge a complicated and confusing personal life into a mainstream world. The story deals with issues ranging from homosexuality to rape and suicide, and examines how the painful details and idiosyncrasies of one’s life can lead from withdrawal to participation and back again – a challenge not uncommon to anyone, at any age, in any culture.

Speak, Laurie Halse Anderson, 1999 – It’s hard to speak about Speak without “spoiling” the plot. Suffice to say that Melinda Sordino enters high school with a secret – a secret so deeply painful that she cannot even think it to herself, let alone share it with the world around her, which is now threatening to leave her behind. A novel that takes on issues that far outscope adolescence, Speak seeks to adjust our vocabulary and thinking around suffering and self-blame. For this, it has become a favorite target of censors across the country – efforts that are, in this case (and in this writer’s opinion), criminal in their own right.

Read On: The 2000s

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak (2006) – “Mystery bores me. It chores me. I know what happens and so do you. It’s the machinations that wheel us there that aggravate, perplex, interest, and astound me.” So says Death, who knows all and tells a tale of young Liesel Meminger (alternating with her own accounts) as she navigates Nazi Germany in this story of survival and discovery. Somewhere in the abstract sadness (Death likes to distill feelings and happenings to a macabre and basic color scheme) and primal reality of the events that swirl around her, Liesel scratches out a life for herself that features some semblance of humanity. Among her coping skills is her budding relationship with books, some of which she rescues from Nazi book burnings as she dares to feel in the face of fate.

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins, 2008 – Okay, okay, calm down, I’ll say it. Yes, this is a great book. A killer read, in fact. This dystopian bestseller, the first of a trilogy that’s taking the world by storm, is the first person account of a great heroine – the “girl on fire,” Katniss Everdeen – who is one of many children forced to pay for the sins of their parents (daring to rise up against a post-apocalyptic Totalitarian regime) in a annual, government-sponsored, unspeakably horrifying spectacle. Thick with cultural symbolism and metaphor (everything from consumer and celebrity culture to class warfare and environmental degradation comes to mind), The Hunger Games is also a spectacular thriller of a novel. Put it down. Dare you… and “may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Jumpstart the World, Catherine Ryan Hyde, 2010 – Thrust into an adult living situation (that is to say, living alone) while still in high school, Elle faces an all-too-sudden and accelerated need to occupy into her own emotional self. A literal cast-off, she’s forced to quickly react and assign meaning to unfamiliar relationships and people and their roles (gender and otherwise) in her jumpstarted life. “Independence has no reverse gear. Fear or no fear,” realizes Elle. The struggle then becomes to “just be as close to yourself as you can possibly bring yourself to be.” Sound wise? Simple, almost effortless prose belies life’s certain complications in this great read from the author of Pay it Forward.

The Fault in Our Stars, John Green, 2012 – Suffering, dignity, destiny, coping with the diminishing returns of life. Alas, “the world is not a wish-granting factory” and cancer survivor (for the time being), 16-year-old Hazel Grace Lancaster must deal with that fact. A deep and intensely philosophical book, The Fault in Our Stars boldly submits that “some infinites are bigger than others” and then crawls inside a few unfortunately smaller ones, bravely exploring shortened lifespans from the inside looking out – without the polite pulling of punches. How does love and life appear through such a prism?  How can such a read shed light on your own life experience? In a world where life is “a side effect of dying,” you might ask, what’s it worth to you? Yong Adult fiction? Read it and you tell me.

Editor’s note: News & Culture contributor Scott Adelson’s biweekly feature, InPRINT, reviews and discusses books new and old, as well as examines issues in publishing.

ALSO CHECK OUT:

InPrint: On the Road, Again – Revisiting Jack Kerouac

InPrint: Les Histoires De Paris & Two Novel Additions

Between the Lines: The Power of the Written Word

InPrint: Small Presses, Big Fiction – 2 Books You Shouldn’t Miss

Top image: Pink Sherbet Photography

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