A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again

David Foster Wallace's book of "essays and arguments" is, if nothing else, a fantastic way to enrich one's vocabulary. Luckily, reading Wallace is much more than a lexical exercise -- he's engaging, wryly funny, insightful, prone to digression, and given to self-examination and introspection. In other hands, the consistent footnotes and self-glossing could be distracting, but all of these essays flow quite well.

The collection is without a unifying theme, although there are two essays on tennis -- one on Wallace's experiences as a regional junior player from roughly twelve to eighteen (from twelve through fifteen, he was "near great"), and the other on Michael Joyce, at the time ranked in the 80s in the world. The latter is dated several years later, and Joyce so impresses Wallace that Wallace resolves not to mention his experiences on the junior tennis circuit, where he (Wallace) had been highly ranked in his small corner of Illinois.

The capstone and eponymous essay uses copious footnotes, and is an extremely in-depth followup to the previous essay on the Illinois State Fair (a magazine had sent Wallace to the Fair the previous year, and had liked the results so much that he was sent on a luxury cruise to attempt to duplicate his hyperliterate-fish-out-of-water act). Unfortunately, it's also the only essay in the collection where Wallace moves from wry observer to neurotic complainer, as his interactions with the crew (and his reflections upon these interactions) display paranoia. He is able to laugh at himself, but it's a little unsettling.

Overall, this is an extremely engaging and diverse collection of essays. While two (television and literary criticism) can be a bit dense, they're all worth reading. It's also interesting to see the differences in style -- the early essays lack footnotes, the television essay uses them for their ordinary intended purpose (cites), the Lynch essay uses them extensively (and is delivered in vignetted form), and the title work uses them on nearly every page, with occasional sub-notes (!). Extremely engaging and thought-provoking.

The Killer Angels

I have never heard of a historical novel quite like Michael Shaara’s Pulitzer Prize-winning effort; while other novels certainly feature equal or greater depths of research, Shaara is alone, as far as I know, in using only primary sources in his attempt to bring to life the Battle of Gettysburg. In a brief (one page) note, Shaara explains why he did so thusly:

You may find it a different story from the one you learned in school. There have been many versions of that battle and that war. I have therefore avoided historical opinions and gone back primarily to the words of the men themselves, their letters and other documents. I have not consciously changed any fact. I have condensed some of the action, for the sake of clarity, and eliminated some minor characters, for brevity; but though I have often had to choose between conflicting viewpoints, I have not knowingly violated the action.

Shaara also cites Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage as an inspiration for his novel -- that reading history isn't enough to induce the feeling of being there. Of course, this raises the question as to what liberties Shaara took -- what minor characters he eliminated or condensed, and why was this done? (Although, who needs a dozen different aides to a general when one will do?)

The Killer Angels is split into chapters in which the narration is focused on one man, from a third person perspective. I believe this is the best way to convey the scope of the planning, buildup, and execution of the battle, as Shaara rotates the viewpoint with each chapter (although the narration remains third person omniscient). The biggest criticism of this usage is that the thoughts of the most recurring characters (Longstreet for the Confederacy, and Colonel Chamberlain for Union) can get repetitive -- Longstreet constantly despairing of his inability to persuade Lee to engage in a more defensive posture, and Chamberlain doting on his younger brother, Tom. It is precisely because of this narrative structure that The Killer Angels succeeds as a humanistic portrait of the battle, rather than a historical analysis -- real people can be tedious and repetitive.

While I don't have the historical chops to go into whether or not Shaara's narrative is a) faithful to the sources he worked from and b) in line with what modern historians believe, I feel that I should point out that after the battle begins, he neglects to mention much beyond Little Round Top (because that's where Chamberlain was, and where Longstreet, on Lee's orders, attacked) and Pickett's Charge (because Longstreet and Chamberlain were again both involved). While the action on Little Round Top and the Federal center were not inconsequential to the battle, other areas of engagement are glossed over. So while the novel is large in scope, it seems almost narrow here.

The Killer Angels is a worthwhile, easy read, and certainly made me want to look more into the Civil War in general, and the Battle of Gettysburg in particular. In that respect, it is a smashing success. Is it a worthy Pulitzer winner, though? Out of the winners I have read, I would rank it next to last, ahead of only Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies.

Lords and Ladies

Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies is one part of an extensive series (thirty eight total novels, according to Wikipedia), but I was able to read it as a stand alone novel, without being familiar with the rest of the series, or its extensive mythology. This is a major point in its favor, as many series can be impenetrable if the reader isn't familiar with the basic premise and previous plotting.

Lords and Ladies is pretty standard comic fantasy (although Pratchett is one of the originators of the genre, so maybe that's not a totally fair criticism) with witches, elves, dwarves, trolls, wizards, and a jester who has become king. The conflicts are predictable, but the resolution not quite so. A worthwhile way to spend some time, although I have little desire to read the rest of the series. (It is, however, a comforting thought that if I were struck so, it would not take me an inordinate amount of time).

City of Thieves

David Benioff's City of Thieves begins with a conceit; that the author is relating his grandfather's experiences during the siege of Leningrad. This is, of course, patently false, but it might be a better hook than a typical cold open. Benioff has the good sense to stay out of his own way after this -- there's no interlude where he asks his grandfather "and then what happened," as they both sip tea or vodka.

This is a plot-driven novel, which certainly isn't bad -- it's easy reading, and I was able to finish it over the course of a few hours. Our protagonist is Lev, a malnourished seventeen year old boy, stuck in Leningrad during the siege. When a dead German pilot falls from the sky, Lev and his friends loot the body, and Lev is arrested by the NKVD. Rather than shooting him on the spot, they take him to prison, where he meets Kolya, a deserter with literary pretensions.

After spending the night in prison, Kolya and Lev are delivered to a colonel, who offers them their freedom for a price -- his daughter is getting married in a week, and he needs a dozen eggs so she can have a wedding cake. It's a surreal request, in a city where people eat dirt (from underneath a sugar factory), the bindings of books, "bread" made from bark flour, and where rumors of cannibalism abound (and are horrifyingly confirmed, here). With no other options, Kolya and Lev agree to the colonel's request, and are set back into the city, sans their ration cards. Without the ration cards, they will be unable to obtain even the meager amount of food that is available in the city.

This all occurs in the first forty pages. The remaining ~220 are devoted to the pair's increasingly difficult quest, as they meet numerous dead ends, and deal with various obstacles -- literature, an amateur butcher, a rooftop henhouse, German shelling, Kolya's libido, Russian troops, the winter, partisans, kept whores, the Einsatzgruppen, and chess. It's a fun adventure, and worth seeking out.

Heat

Bill Buford's Heat is the story of one man's descent into madness. Buford meets Mario Batali, the celebrity chef, and proceeds to insinuate himself in the kitchen of one of Mario's restaurants, Babbo. Buford's goal is to soak up culinary knowledge for his own benefit, to be a better cook at home. Buford begins in the prep kitchen, where food is initially prepared (dicing carrots, trimming fat and bone from cuts of meat, preparing herbs) so the service in the evening just has to cook. From there, he moves around the kitchen, working the grill, the pasta station, and plating food.

After a year in the kitchen, Buford wants more. Despite his proficiency (he's already quit his job as an editor, and is working full time as a line cook), he takes some time off from the restaurant to spend time in Italy with the family who taught Mario how to make pasta. The family is only too happy to take on a friend of Mario's, and Buford makes several trips, becoming quite close to the family, who live in a backwater Italian town. He is even shown a tortellini recipe on the condition that he keeps it from Mario.

This still isn't enough for Buford, and he returns to Italy (with his long-suffering wife, who he has convinced to quit her job as well) to work with a Tuscan butcher, who Mario's father had worked with. The butcher is a larger than life individual, much like Mario -- at Buford's first encounter with him, everyone in the shop is drinking, and the butcher is declaiming the Divine Comedy. At the butcher shop, Buford is instructed by the butcher's mentor, and learns that not all countries have the same cuts of meat -- he's relating to Mario the various cuts he's learned on the leg, and Mario stops him, laughing, with the revelation that he's never heard of these cuts. The student has, while not quite surpassed the master, become something different.

The book ends with Buford and Mario enjoying a night on the town, and Mario offering to help Buford start a restaurant. Buford demurs, saying now that he's master Italian cooking, he needs to follow the example of Catherine di Medici, and master French.

The Counterfeiters

I was brought to Andre Gide’s The Counterfeiters by Roberto Bolaño’s The Savage Detectives (at least that’s how I remember it – will have to double check). Upon doing so, I realize I was likely led to Gide through a NY Times review of Bolaño’s novel.

The Counterfeiters is an intricate, layered novel of many intertwined and interrelated characters, which never fully starts or stops. It focuses on Edouard, a thirty eight year old novelist, who, while critically acclaimed, has not had the literary success of some of his fellows. As the novel progresses, it becomes clear that Edouard is a stand-in for the author himself, as he observes the scandals of his young friends and relations. Although he's involved, he's more of a benevolent overseer than an active participant.

The point of view is interesting – while it’s third person omniscient, it is so in an unconventional way, as events are related from a limited point of view, and then switching to limited from the viewpoint of another character. Events and new characters are often introduced obliquely.

Perhaps the biggest criticism that can be made of the work is that Gide lays out so much of his philosophy of art in the speech of the characters -- Edouard has long discussions and journal entries on the novel he is planning on writing (also called The Counterfeiters) which mirror Gide's journal, which is included at the end of this translation of the novel. This is another sticking point -- Gide seems like he could have lifted nearly all of Edouard's journal from his own journal. Should an author have such a transparent avatar?

Midway through, it's revealed that Edouard is working on his next novel -- also titled "The Coutnerfeiters", and dealing with the same themes as the novel we're reading. This is what allows Gide to insert so much of his thoughts on art and literature into the novel, since Edouard is working at the same business Gide is -- creation. It's not quite ham-handed, but it's not exactly subtle, either.

The Counterfeiters ends the way Edouard had been planning on ending his novel -- abruptly, in midstream, leaving itself open for a sequel, but not demanding one. It's a worthwhile novel, and an interesting exercise in metafiction. I won't be re-reading it anytime soon, but I'm glad that I finished it.

Starlight

Alfred Bester's Starlight is a worthwhile science fiction short story collection. My only previous exposure to Bester's short fiction was the excellent "Fondly Fahrenheit", which is included here, and is a highlight. Like many retrospectives, there's extensive commentary by Bester, as he introduces each story. In the hands of other authors, this is occasionally tedious, but Bester sets the stage for each story well, and explains what he's doing.

As with many collections, Starlight is a bit uneven. There's gems like the aforementioned "Fondly Fahrenheit," and typical sci-fi fare like "Adam and No Eve" and "The Four Hour Fugue." "Of Time and Third Avenue" could very well be an Arthur C. Clarke story. Of course, there's clunkers as well, like "Hell is Forever", the longest story in the book, which inspires Bester to opine on himself at the time he wrote the story:

"I feel like a father to that kid, and I think he shows promise in 'Hell is Forever.' He makes mistakes, he's green and gauche, his knowledge and understanding of character is minimal, he has a lot to learn, but I think he ought to stay with it. He might become a pro some day."

Tough to argue with that, but "Hell is Forever" really drags. Luckily, most of the collection isn't Bester growing and developing, but is rather high caliber science fiction stories. I would recommend, but it's probably worth picking up The Demolished Man first. That said, it's easy to see how Bester became disillusioned with science fiction, and decided to move on during the 1960s. While the work here is something that any science fiction fan should be aware of, it's very much rooted in the 1940s and 1950s, and there's only so much that can be done there without tedious repetition. Bester had a hell of a career, and this is not a bad coda.