Book Review Blogging

November 27, 2007 | 2 Comments

Oops. Sorry about that. Falling off the blogging universe and all. I’ll spare you the boring excuses. Well, other than to say that the holidaze led me to be enslaved by the reader bug. I was a largely immovable object from the “reading sofa,” devouring J.M Coetzee’s “Slow Man,” James Salter’s “A Sport and a Pastime,” and Gordon and Trainor’s “Cobra II.” And then I thought: To hell with blogging. Give it a rest. And so I did. Forgive me. Or don’t. But in the process of forgiveness or vengeance (your choice), please do yourself a favor and read Coetzee and Salter.

Salter’s “A Sport and a Pastime” is – like all of his work – a compact and potent word explosion. His short, dense and descriptive sentences leave me fulfilled like a rich dessert. Go ahead, read it and then roll it around on your tongue/mind for a bit. Taste it. Smell it. And then just try to put it down. But then the story ends and, if you’re like me, you’ll find yourself standing at your bookshelf wondering where the other Salter books are. Damn, I need more, you’ll say, like any good junky-reader would.

Here, for example, is a brief Salter excerpt to whet your appetite:

In the corner in a trenchcoat, her hair gleaming, sits a silent girl with a face like a bird, one of those hard little faces, the bones close beneath it. A passionate face. The face of a girl who might move to the city. She has large eyes, marked in black. A wide mouth, pale as wax. Around her neck is a band of imitation diamonds. It seems I am seeing everything more clearly. The details of a whole world are being opened to me.

It is, indeed, a softly erotic story, told by a man we never really know. He remembers and lives through a friend, vaguely bouncing around France but coming into clear focus when love and lust become paramount – which is often. He’s stricken by the bug of love at first sight over and over again, the symptom of searching and longing and attempting to fill an obvious void. And so the most routine (and brief) encounters with a woman on a train, for example, become life giving and forever memorable. Taste this moment of memory from a train scene:

She has taken a caramel out of her handbag. She unwraps it, put it in her mouth to ensure her silence. Her fingers play with the paper, rolling it slowly, tightening the roll. Her eyes are pale blue. They can stare right through one. The nose is long but feminine. I am curious to see her teeth.

Oh just read it. But do yourself a favor and have Salter’s “Last Nights” on hand so you’ll lessen your withdrawal pangs when you’re finished.

Coetzee’s “Slow Man” is also a kind of a love story. Specifically, it’s about a sixty-ish single man, Paul Rayment, who loses a leg in a bicycle accident and, as a result, begins to ponder his life. His wound leaves him feeling alone and wondering about his decisions not to marry, not to have children and his general perspective on life. Ah, the void! And so he seeks…and seeks…and stumbles. Such is life.

Rayment’s lost leg becomes a metaphor for his lost love and, it seems, a lost life. And he doesn’t take long to fill the void of his lost leg/love with his desperate pursuit of his nurse. He must have her. Never mind that she’s married with three children of her own. Ha! He will take care of the children. And he will befriend her husband. Whatever it takes. Whatever promises have to be made. Whatever. Please, oh please, be his.

Like most of Coetzee’s fine works, Slow Man asks more questions than it solves. Again, such is life. And, in the end, Rayment struggles, ponders and stumbles in a rather existential dance with life. He’s a man in need, seeking to fill a void and changing people’s lives like only a man in desperate search of “love” can: messy and sometimes endearing and sometimes loathsome. Beware the drowning man, for he may take you down with him. Unless, of course, he finds the shore all by himself.

And now, for something completely different, there’s Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor’s “Cobra II,” the much ballyhooed and self-proclaimed “inside story of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.” Gordon, the New York Times reporter, and Trainor, the retired gerneral, are, for sure, decidedly mainstream. No surprise there. But the story of the Iraq war doesn’t need ideological bending to make it appear as ridiculous as it is. And so, Gordon and Trainor methodically – 700-plus-pages worth! – detail the very real insanity of the planning and implementation of an insane war.

I picked it up while browsing at Bear Pond Books over the holiday. I thought it was going to be one of those quick pick it up, scan it for a moment and then put it back with a smirk of a thought. But as I began reading one random passage after another I found myself enjoying the pace of the writing and the rather dispassionate condemnation of the entire affair. It’s dispassionate like a morticians account of a corpse is. It ignores the wails from the adjoining rooms and plows on to record the events and only the events. But that didn’t prevent me from slinging the heavy tome across the room more than a few times with shouts of outrage and hopes that someday the architects of the Iraqi War madness see the jail cells that they deserve to see – especially Donald Rumsfeld.

I’m going to have more to say about this book but, for now, I’ve run out of time. Yes it was a fine Thanksgiving. I’m thankful for the fine books and the sofa to read them on. And you?

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under blog, books 

Friday Random Bloggin

October 5, 2007 | 2 Comments

Hmm, let’s see, it’s 75 degrees. Sunny and clear. Little wind. No bugs. To hell with a long blog entry, I’m staying outdoors. So consider your little brat-selves lucky to be hearing a damn thing from me on a day like this. On with the show…

I just picked up Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s “Poetry As Insurgent Art.” I was browsing at the bookstore and became captivated by the size and design of the elegant little book. Sure, I’ve always been a fan of Ferlinghetti of City Lights Books and Beat fame, but I’m also a sucker for design. And so up into my hands it went. The commitment to buy it was sealed when I read the quote he had in one of the opening pages from Subcommadante Marcos:

“We apologize for the inconvenience, but this is a revolution.”

Ah. Right on. Now, would someone please tell the peace ninnies standing around at the post office – you know, the one’s who’ve convinced themselves that standing around is going to stop the war – that a little inconvenience is what’s necessary for real political and cultural change. And they could start by taking their activism seriously enough to inconvenience THEMSELVES a bit more than standing around like drones for a half-hour every week with little more to say than “Bush is Bad.” Whatever. And here’s a free suggestion: How about you take your anger to the offices of Welch, Sanders and Leahy who continue to vote for billions and billions more for the Iraq out of some kind of fear that to do otherwise will be branded as an act “against the troops.” Get over it. Besides, at some point – a point we passed years ago – we’ve got to stop supporting the troops and start blaming them. And perhaps we can’t start with the Commander-in-Chief. Time’s up.

The Zuckerman Dilemma: Shhh…Don’t tell anyone but Dave Zuckerman, the Prog from Burlap, is moving. Yep. He’s the new proud owner of a very fine farm in Hinesburg, Vermont. And while he’ll still have his rental units in his old Burlington digs, the word on the street is that his primary residence will be in Hinesburg by the time the next election comes around. While the 100-plus acres of lush farmland he’s purchasing with his wife will more than occupy his time and energy, his move – and, I would assume, his resignation of his current seat in the Vermont House – could mean a fine time for a statewide run for the highest profile Prog to hold office. Zuckerman would be a much better candidate than Anthony Pollina, Vermont’s energy-less bunny who just keeps losing and losing. Zuckerman, you see, has done the work that Pollina hasn’t: He got elected at a local level, has done some fine legislative work, and he can speak in complete sentences. Given Zuckerman’s moving dilemma, let’s hope the Progs come to their senses quickly and convince Farmer Dave to take the statewide plunge.

Reading Around: Congrats to the Times Argus for making the move to haul in Ed DuFresne to write a weekly music column for its newly reformulated arts page, “Invite.” Bravo all around. Ed, of course, is a perfect choice to give readers the run down on the Montpelier music scene. He’s been smack dab in the middle of it for years. In fact, I remember seeing him running around Montpelier six years ago with his buddy, Wes Hamilton of Langdon Street Café fame, trying to ignite their dream to breathe some musical/cultural life into the quiet little town. They were looking everywhere – and anywhere! – for a place to get it all started. Now fast-forward six years and notice the difference. There’s now Langdon Street Café. There’s the Black Door. Positive Pie. And now even Vermont College is getting into the act for the bigger acts. Three cheers for dreaming…

Hide that Opinion: Speaking of the Times Argus, congrats to Louis Porter for his piece in today’s paper, “Douglas Stands Behind the President.” But the headline makes me wonder: What, exactly, is Douglas doing while “standing behind” the Prez? Never mind. I’m always amazed how Douglas gets away with being a Bush lap-dog with the Vermont media. But, thankfully, Porter has taken a stab at doing what should have been done for years: Paint Douglas as the Bush cheerleader that he is. Don’t forget, he was the chairman of Bush’s Vermont campaign committees. And he’s spent the night with the Bushies in the White House. So it’s about time someone took note of Douglas’ not-so-hidden right-wing tendencies. I’m just wondering why TA’s editor, Sue Allen, decided to bury Porter’s piece below the fold on page A7? Scared of something, Sue? It’s okay, the media’s supposed to criticize our elected officials. I know the Vermont media’s a little behind the curve on this but, trust me, it’s how democracy tends to work. More, please.

There was one little error in Porter’s reporting, however. While describing Douglas’ silly explanation that the Bush presidency is in shambles because it just seems to be the way things go in second terms (forget the war and the trampling of the Constitution!), Porter writes that Douglas pointed “to the Iran-Contra and Monica Lewinsky scandals late in President Bill Clinton’s term.” Sorry, but Iran-Contra was on Reagan’s watch. Not sure if Douglas or Porter got that wrong. But it is wrong. But not as wrong as comparing the Lewinsky “scandal” with an illegal war that has killed tens of thousands of people. Sorry, but I’ll take the blowjob over that any day. But – hey – that’s just me….

Okay, brats, you got more than you deserved. I’m getting outside. And may I suggest you do the same? Ready, set, go….

Posted by M. Colby | Filed Under activism, blog, books, vt media, vt politics