Best ‘New to Us’ Books in 2012: Emil S.’s Picks

Classics play a major part in my reading life, but in 2012 I mainly re-read classics (or read classics that I obtained through Inter-Library Loan). Thus, my “New to Us” books are all fairly new, no older than 16 years old, and therefore many years away from even being considered for the shelf of classics. In the meantime, they can perhaps be classified as noteworthy contemporary reads! — Emil S.

Red Gold by Alan Furst
France is occupied by German forces, but things have changed since “Case Barbarossa” – the German led attack on Soviet Union. French communists who take their orders from Moscow have been activated and now participate in a war effort that reaches from France to the heart of Soviet Union. Jean Casson, a former film producer, lets himself be pulled into the French Resistance, and he is good at getting things done. But the different sides of the anti-German movement are suspicious of each other, and while the occupying forces are being attacked, the French are preparing for the next battle – the conflict after the war.

Arguably by Christopher Hitchens
British born, American writer Christopher Hitchens was arguably one of the great public intellectuals of our time. He was fantastically prolific and (as Ian Parker once put it) wrote faster than some people read. In 2011, Hitchens passed away, and the fearless opponent of (almost) any kind of oppression was dearly missed by many. Arguably, published about two months before his death, contains 107 of Hitchens’ texts – his range is enormous and it’s a great book to carry around as it embraces so much of this strange and wondrous world.

Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes by William Kennedy
William Kennedy was born in 1928 and he writes with the confidence and authority of a veteran. Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes is a sprawling novel that mainly takes place in Cuba during the revolution of the late 1950s, and in an Albany, New York, that is about to explode after the killing of Robert Kennedy in 1968. When reading the novel, it is near impossible to predict where it is going, and the plot is (perhaps) hard to define. Instead, this novel is about strong, wonderful characters and about awesome dialogue – that’s the heart and soul of Chango’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes.

The Sorrow Gondola by Tomas Tranströmer
When Tomas Tranströmer’s Sorgegondolen – The Sorrow Gondola – was published in 1996, it was his first collection of poetry since the stroke that hit him in 1990. In Tranströmer’s native land, Sweden, the book instantly became a bestseller, and it’s easy to understand why, for the poet’s writing was as powerful as ever. He writes, “The sun is low now./ Our shadows are giants./ Soon, everything will be overshadowed.” But in another poem he writes, “A blue light/ radiates from my clothes./ Midwinter./ Clattering tambourines of ice./ I close my eyes./ There is a silent world/ there is a crack/ where the dead/ are smuggled across the border.”

The Submission by Amy Waldman
A jury gathers in New York, New York, to select a memorial for the victims of the massacre of September eleventh, 2001. The winner turns out to be an American Muslim, Muhammad Khan, and when media finds out, a heated debate and even acts of violence spread across the nation. The Submission is a novel about America and Islam, and about the open wounds of 9/11, but it is also a story about media and how media shape the debates in this nation (and elsewhere). And the reader has good reasons to ask, is media interested in the truth or merely in the news?

Lit by Mary Karr

If there was an award for most meaningful short book title I would nominate Lit, the third installment of Mary Karr’s critically acclaimed autobiography (following The Liar’s Club, which was previously blogged by another reviewer, and Cherry). That small three letter word can be interpreted in several ways; there are at least three ‘lits’ in the life of Mary Karr.

One is literature. Her love of words began in childhood and found expression in her poetry (her latest collection is Sinners Welcome) and prose. The second is her taste for alcohol. Unfortunately, her appetite for liquor becomes an uncontrollable craving to get ‘lit’ as often as possible. As you can imagine, this creates problems, both professional and personal. She discovers a third ‘lit’ when she seeks to control her addiction and she finds faith in a higher power (she has described herself as a “black belt sinner”).

Mary Karr is unflinchingly honest in her portrayal of a talented woman battling to overcome her own self doubts and weaknesses. She writes movingly of her love for her son, her failed marriage, her complicated relationship with her mother and the kindness shown her by others when she reaches out for help. Beautifully written, unsentimental and, in parts, screamingly funny, Lit delivers what great autobiographies always do–a chance to experience the life of another from the inside out.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

The Great Enigma by Tomas Tranströmer

Haiku is one of the best-known poetic forms on earth. The Japanese seventeen syllable haiku has been around since the 1600s, today there are about 780 haiku magazines in Japan, and Japanese schoolchildren learn early on how to use as few words as possible when describing events – the task of minimizing a narrative to just a few keywords becomes a game with signs that captivates the young.

In 2011, the society that is in charge of the Nobel Prize in literature – for the first time ever – brought up the presence of haiku in an author’s output when announcing the winner of the award. Unsurprisingly, the poet, Tomas Tranströmer, was not Japanese but Swedish, for haiku poems are today written all over the world.

Tomas Tranströmer was attracted to haiku early on in his career, but it wasn’t until after his stroke in 1990 that he once again embraced the form. And the majority of Tranströmer’s work is not haiku – in the world of poetry he is known as a master of metaphor, and metaphor has no place in traditional haiku. However, Tranströmer’s poetry has always been bare, elegant, precise, and serene, and when he returned to haiku it was as if the poet had come home again.

And just like in the poetry of the Japanese haiku masters, nature plays a major part in Tranströmer’s poetry. Nature, of course, uses many different dresses, but to Tranströmer it is always holy and divine: “The darkening leaves/ in autumn are as precious/ as the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

The Japanese term “mono no aware” is often (lamely) translated as “sadness,” but it is more correct to understand it as an awareness of impermanence, or the transient nature of all things. This is a recurring theme in Tranströmer’s verse. In “Snow Is Falling,” he says, “The funerals keep coming/ more and more of them/ like the traffic signs/ as we approach a town./ Thousands of people gazing/ in the land of long shadows.” Which may seem bleak, but Tranströmer is too sophisticated to be categorized as either gloomy or bright, and the poem reaches this conclusion, “A bridge builds itself/ slowly/ straight out into space.”

Death itself may be the end. Then again, it may not. In the prose poem “Answers to Letters,” the poet speaks of a place, possibly New York City, which is beyond death, “One day I will answer. One day when I am dead and can finally concentrate. Or at least as far away from here that I can find myself again. When I’m walking, newly arrived, in the big city, on 125th Street, in the wind on the street of dancing garbage. I who love to stray off and vanish in the crowd, a letter T in the endless mass of text.”

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Essential Poems (to Fall in Love with) presented by Daisy Goodwin

Did you know that there was a BBC TV show on poetry?  In 2003 Daisy Goodwin edited this little collection of love poems that have been performed by various actors on the show, such as Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress,” acted out as an office Don Juan flirting with the new temp.  What a cool idea—to take these poems that we think of as only read by English teachers, and show how full of life and truly “up to date” they are.

The poetry is arranged under topics from “Playing the Dating Game” to “Getting Over It,” with every nuance in between.  Here are poems for every mood and moment of love—or its absence.  Many of us can relate to the bitter truthfulness of Wendy Cope’s four-line poem:

I can’t forgive you.  Even if I could,
You wouldn’t pardon me for seeing through you
And yet I cannot cure myself of love
For what I thought you were before I knew you.

There are passionate poems, thoughtful poems, jealous poems, and some to cheer you up when you feel sad, like this little ditty from Adrian Mitchell:

When I am sad and weary
When I think all hope has gone
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.

There are poems about old couples in love, how to deal with your ex’s new flame, and the ups and downs of marriage.  There are even poems about love that never quite was, such as these lines from Sara Teasdale’s poem “The Look”:

Strephon’s kiss was lost in jest,
Robin’s lost in play,
But the kiss in Colin’s eyes
Haunts me night and day.

Whether you’re thinking right now that love’s a joy or love’s a pain, there’s something in here for you.  Keep this book on your bedside table—or perhaps in your medicine cabinet!  It will remind you that love is worth searching for and worth cherishing when we find it.  This poem, which closes the collection, says it well.  It was written by Raymond Carver, shortly after he learned he had an inoperable brain tumor:

And did you get what
You wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
Beloved on the earth.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Best ‘New to Us’ Books in 2011: Emil S.’s Picks

Before I worked in a library, I was a book editor for nine years, and a master of library science and a master of arts in literature may suggest that I have a thing for books. So, slowly, I read a lot of books. My range is fairly wide (me thinks, any way), beginning in 1700 B.C.E. and lasting till present day. Here are some of my favorites which I discovered in 2011:

The Great Enigma by Tomas Tranströmer
It is not every year – or every decade, even – that a poet receives the Nobel Prize for literature, but in 2011 it happened. Since his debut in 1954, Tranströmer has published (roughly) 250 pages of poems, and The Great Enigma (2004) will probably be his last collection of verse, for he is old and has already had some close encounters with death. The poems appear to be about the wonder of existence, and they display gratefulness for what life has given and continues to offer. God has always been present in Tranströmer’s poetry, but in The Great Enigma the presence of God is more obvious than ever before. However, the poet is not preachy – all he is saying is that he, even as death is drawing near, is deeply thankful for being part of the copulative verb “to be.”

True Grit by Charles Portis
Charles Portis’ True Grit (1968) is a simple and straightforward tale of an attempt to achieve justice or deliver vengeance, powerfully told and enriched by outstanding monologues and dialogues. The storyteller is a Mattie Ross, and the tale is told from the perspective of Ms. Ross as an older woman, in 1928. Many years earlier, at the age of fourteen, she undertook the quest of tracking down Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. The country she portraits is a land filled with Americans in different stages of desperation, trying to survive in an age where the line between law and crime, law enforcer and criminal, is vague. Tragedy and comedy sometimes share room in a single sentence, and the young country that is in the process of growing older is developing a particular identity. Read my colleague Amy W.’s full review.

Top Ten: The Forty-Niners by Alan Moore (writer) and Gene Ha (artist)
In Top Ten: The Forty-Niners (2005), Briton Alan Moore tells the tale of Neopolis, a city that in 1949 is brand new, and populated by humans (and other creatures) with super powers. The city is magnificent and its dark underbelly serves as an appropriate offset: Nazi scientists are trying to change events of the past so that the Third Reich will triumph, and vampires are preying on the citizens of the city – whereof some are all too eager to become victims of the bloodsuckers. In the midst of this mess, a police department is trying to keep the situation from spinning out of control, and the officers of this force are the main characters of the tale. Some law enforcers believe in the persuasive power of brute force, others are still trying to figure out who they are and what their role is in this new city, and then there is the divine Joanna Dark – or The Maid. She feels no ambivalence at all – she is just in the world to crush evil.

War by Sebastian Junger
The American military endeavor in Afghanistan has entered its eleventh year of combat, and it is the longest war in U.S. history. Journalist Sebastian Junger spent 14 months embedded with a platoon – that’s about 30 men – of the 173rd Airborne brigade in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley. It is a tiny outpost of U.S.A.’s mighty military machine, and out here the U.S. soldiers know that they may get overrun by the Taliban, who – heavily armed – engage in battle “as calmly as if they [are] organizing a game of cricket.” War (2010) is a book that is well researched, engaging, and deeply moving. A large number of U.S. soldiers engaged in the war in Afghanistan come and go and only a few are portrayed in a multi-layered way, but overall Junger paints an image of the warrior that is complex and honest, and War offers anthropological, biological, historical, psychological, and sociological insights as it shows the warrior in fear, killing, and love. Read my full review.

The Book of Five Rings by Musashi Miyamoto
Miyamoto’s The Book of Five Rings (1645) is a masterpiece that may have the ability to help anyone who has ever encountered difficulties in life (that would be everyone). The text focuses on the way of war and the way of the sword, but it can easily be adapted to all kinds of situations. The author speaks of many possible paths in life, about the importance of studying, knowing, and understanding the path chosen, and, Miyamoto says, those who have a deep understanding of the path they are walking have nothing to fear. It is hard to do such a rich book justice, and Miyamoto would perhaps say: return to it frequently, study the text thoroughly, and embrace its wisdom.

Each title is linked to the library catalog. Have you read any of these books? If so, please share your thoughts in the comments.

Evidence: Poems by Mary Oliver

Mary Oliver’s poems are what poetry should be.  They are neither so dark and mysterious that only a literature professor can understand them, nor are they overly simplistic and sing-song in quality.  They are easy to understand, using common language in a way reminiscent of Robert Frost, yet each one contains a little mystery,  a truth to ponder, a haunting phrase.  They are light and playful, even when she deals with very serious themes, such as death:

May I never not be frisky,
May I never not be risque.

May my ashes, when you have them, friend,
and give them to the ocean,

leap in the froth of the waves,
still loving movement,

still ready, beyond all else,
to dance for the world.

Light seems to shine out of these poems that describe grass, mockingbirds, pine cones, and other familiar natural things.  Occasionally, a somber thought seems to weigh her down, but she gives herself a mental shake:

What, in the earth world,
is there not to be amazed by
and to be steadied by
and to cherish? . . .

look at the world.
Behold the morning glory,
the meanest flower, the ragweed, the thistle.
Look at the grass.

Mary Oliver’s poems are both quieting and uplifting, a refreshment for the spirit.  By drawing our gaze to the beauty of the outward world, she frees us from the self-absorption that too often overwhelms us:

And what do I risk to tell you this, which is all I know?
Love yourself.  Then forget it.  Then, love the world.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

Gilgamesh: a new English version by Stephen Mitchell

When the ancient Royal Library of Ashurbanipal was discovered in 1849, thousands of clay tablets and fragments were unveiled. Among its holdings was a work that today is known as The Epic of Gilgamesh (or just Gilgamesh), the oldest epic known to mankind, written perhaps 1,500 years before The Iliad.

Due to sometimes careless handling much of the library is irreparably jumbled, and despite new findings there is no complete version of the story. Despite this, it is a tale that continues to engage readers as many of the themes and events of the story surpass the era which gave birth to them – it is, in many ways, a timeless tale.

Gilgamesh is a king, a giant with superpowers, and an oppressor of his people in Uruk (present day Iraq). The citizens plead for help and the gods create Enkidu, his double, a second self. Learning of this wild man, a beast, really, who runs with the animals, Gilgamesh dispatches a priestess to find him and tame him by seducing him, and making love with the priestess awakens Enkidu’s consciousness of his true identity as a human being. When Enkidu hears of the king’s behavior he decides to confront the ruler, and the two battle each other. Gilgamesh defeats Enkidu and the two realize that they are meant to be the best of friends. Together they undertake dangerous tasks that incur the displeasure of the gods. Initially, they defeat Humbaba, the monstrous guardian of the cedar forests. Later they kill the Bull of Heaven that the goddess Ishtar has sent to punish Gilgamesh as he has turned her down and also abused her verbally. And then, disease descends upon Enkidu who dies and leaves Gilgamesh in tears.

The latter part of the epic focuses on Gilgamesh’s distraught reaction to Enkidu’s death, which takes the form of a quest for immortality. Gilgamesh attempts to learn the secret of eternal life by undertaking a perilous journey to meet the immortal flood hero, Utnapishtim. It is a hero’s quest, but (as it turns out) a queer one.

So the plot is cool, but what makes the story deeply engaging is the blend of myths, legends, and everyday observations. And the eye for the details of daily life is sharp, the imagery is powerful –the city streets are described as vividly as the supernatural powers of the heavens – and the interaction between humans is vibrant thanks to all the contradictions in behavior that these relationships give rise to.

Stephen Mitchell’s freewheeling version (based on a number of translations) is a good place to start, although his introduction could be sold at the Alkmaar cheese market in the Netherlands. Readers who would like to dig deeper can check out Andrew George’s translation, published by Penguin Classics. It is, as can be expected, serious and solid.

Find and request this book in our catalog.

The Essential Haiku: Versions of Basho, Buson, and Issa edited by Robert Hass

Every now and then the book lover may discover a volume that might invoke a library rather than a book, and as the pages are turned everything seems to be in it. The Essential Haiku, edited and partly translated by Robert Hass, is one of these “libraries” – albeit (and as the title suggests) a specialized one.
Hass’ book offers much more than just haiku poems: there are essays devoted to Basho, Buson, and Issa; there are examples of each poet’s prose; one chapter is dedicated to Basho’s thoughts on poetry; there are notes on different Japanese genres; a note on translation; and an extensive list of further readings – all in all a generous source.

Japan’s poetry tradition is rich and ancient, but outside of the country the knowledge of Japanese verse is usually limited to the seventeen syllable haiku. There are quite a few traits of the haiku poems that make them untranslatable – puns are, as Hass explains, often lost; Syllable count? Don’t bother! The syntax? Well… – but some elements do survive the passage from Japanese to English. For example, the spirit of haiku requires plain language, and this can certainly be a building block of a translation. And then there is matter of nature and seasons, and the presence of Zen Buddhism.

Basho once said that a poet should detach his mind from self, and enter into the object, sharing its delicate life and feelings, and this monastic mindset can transcend language barriers and give a sense of the original poem, as in this interpretation of Basho by Hass: The winter sun – / on the horse’s back / my frozen shadow.

Haiku can be understood as purely descriptive (although some poets would shun this notion), but it is also symbolic. The ever-present seasons are what they are, but they also stand for something else. However, a reader doesn’t have to study Japanese culture, history, and mindset in order to embrace haiku – like art in general, haiku can be grasped on many different levels, and (to use Basho’s words once again) perhaps it’s enough if the poem seems as light “as a shallow river flowing over its sandy bed,” as in this Basho haiku: Winter garden, / the moon thinned to a thread, / insects singing.

Find and reserve this book in our catalog.

The Headless Bust: a Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium by Edward Gorey

“To the memory of Lancelot Brown.”

Why is this wee book of weirdness dedicated to an 18th Century landscape architect?  Lancelot Brown was responsible for at least 150 different English landscapes (probably a lot more), and was given the nickname “Capability” Brown because he was known to see capability for improvement in every garden, landscape, and park he laid eyes on.

But this book has nothing to do with landscapes.  Or England (even though Edward Gorey fools everyone into thinking that he’s from England.  Probably because he draws in a British accent.  But he’s from Chicago!).

No:  this little book is the sequel to The Haunted Tea Cosy: a Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas.  Alas, the Library owns but one copy of that, so here’s my secret-and-brief review of that book (don’t tell anyone!).  Edmund Gravel sits down to have some tea and ten-year-old fruitcake, when from under his tea cosy springs a giant beetle creature.  “I am the Bahhumbug,” it declared; “I am here to diffuse the interests of didacticism.”  Then Edmund is visited by 3 spirits, who each do stupid things.  The End.

The Headless Bust– in which there is neither bust nor disembodied bust head — features Edmund and the Bahhumbug together again at Holidaytime, but this go-round their adventures are regaled in verse.  They are visited by a wingèd Whatsit who guides them to a “provincial town” where the various inhabitants are all distressed for some reason or another.  Eventually they return home, bewildered.  So, they send fruitcake to the indigent and get ready for The False Millennium.

What does this have to do with The Holidays?  Well, there’s fruitcake.  Or, maybe the secret is in the second-to-last verse, which references the French hymn, “Quel Grand Mystère,” that begins like this:

Ah! Quel grand mystère! / Dieu se fait enfant. / Il descend sur terre, / Lui, le tout-puissant!

It’s all about what a great mystery it is that an omnipotent deity descended to Earth in the form of a baby.    And, there’s a baby in The Headless Bust, too: it appears on top of a Summer Solstice cake (says the mother; the father vehemently disagrees).

Other possible yuletide parallels: a giant aubergine carrying a mystic lettered message floats above everyone’s head (Q code for “are you ready,” or perhaps eggplant for “Hail, y’all!”).  A man appears bearing a giant box of loose teeth, which might be useful to someone (supposes a person named Q—-).

What other holiday mysteries lurk in the lurid illustrations of Mr. Gorey?  C’est quelque chose d’un grand mystère.

Read it.

The Liar’s Club: A Memoir by Mary Karr

I know, I know, everyone and their mother has a fricking memoir.  But this one is worth reading, even though I’m having a really hard time writing about it.

See on the one hand this book is a page-turner about a scrappy trash-talking kid who lives with her mother, father, and older sister in a miserable, swampy gulf town in Texas.  Her family is bizarre in a stranger-than-fiction sort of way, and remains so throughout the book.  There’s lots of drinking and lying and yelling and sex and guns.  Her momma has a psychotic episode with a butcher knife.  You will be titillated.

But then also Ms. Karr is an award-winning poet, and her command of Southern idiom and turn of phrase is so incredibly beautiful and pitch-perfect that bringing up her wackadoo family in a book review feels like a cheap or dirty trick.  Mary Karr is a fine writer, and it’s annoying that describing her memoir to anyone sounds like summarizing an episode of “Cops.”

Now, I’m not so stupid as to think that eloquence and entertainment are mutually exclusive, nor do I believe that all memoirs are horrible:  St. Agustine’s Confessions is amazing, as is Nabokov’s Speak, Memory.  It’s just that so much of what’s been published lately is, frankly, crap.

Recently I was reminded of this beautiful quote from Aleksander Hemon’s novel The Lazarus Project: “All the lives we could live, all the people we will never know, never will be, they are everywhere. That is what the world is.”  It seems to me that this is why we read literature in the first place–for an experience by proxy that provides us with some kind of awareness.

Mary Karr’s book made me aware of how marvelous it is to hear a Southern person tell a story (no matter if it’s entirely, or at all, true).  It reminded me of what a strange thing memory is.  It enforced my conviction that even a funny, ribald tale can be told in language that is purposeful and lasting.  It emphasized why we should all know the meaning of the Greek word “atë.”

Check the book out.