Reading Addict

‘Dude, Fight Club totally ruled.’ 

No doubt you overheard this direct quote, possibly dozens of times if you saw the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation in theatres.  I didn’t see it in theatres, and I heard it about 30 times more than I wished. 

I remember vividly the first time I saw Palahniuk’s love/hate affair with nihilism.  I was in high school, on a tennis trip in Arkansas.  Much to the chagrin of my coach, I ordered Fight Club on pay-per-view from my yellow curtained, musty motel room.  Afterwards, our team members bounced off each other, off the walls, off the beds, as if we had just mainlined a quart of pure cane sugar. 

It wasn’t until further viewings, and probably a couple years of maturity under my belt, that the full ramifications of the movie were fully understood.  Sure, it’s an over-the top ode to masculinity, an infatuation with chaos and anarchy that’s practically forced down your throat.  But despite the legions of insta-anarchists the film spawned, culling direct quotes from the book or Wikipedia entries, the book still stands as a touchstone for a nihilistic generation bent on destruction as creation. 

Before Palahniuk became a one-trick pony (exhibit A: Snuff. Just try to get through it without saying to yourself, ‘Haven’t I read this before?’) and before David Fincher made Fight Club the only movie adaptation to rival the quality of the original work; Palahniuk bestowed upon us his debut: Survivor.  If you thought Fight Club was incendiary, check out Survivor. It has yet to be adapted to film, due mostly to a plane wreck that is just too provocative in this post-9/11 climate.  While Fight Club illuminates class struggle and masculinity, Survivor is like an amphetamine fueled J.G. Ballard rant against consumerist culture and organized religion.  Free will is also a major concern of the novel, as Tender Branson the protagonist, can purportedly see the future. 

If, like me, you were once a huge Palahniuk fan, but like Tyler Durden in Fight Club have become grossly disillusioned with his latest fare, give Survivor a shot.  Be ready for that signature style of Palahniuk’s before he beat it to death and used it as his template. 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines ‘freak’ as one that is markedly unusual or abnormal, a person or animal having a physical oddity. That being said, I love me some ‘Freak Lit’! I gobble up stories about people on the fringes of society, people who have been cast out as inferior. These books humanize freaks; they force you to identify with them and examine your own life and identity. I love the intricacies of their stories; the intimate details of their inner lives, and the beauty that is found in the grotesque (Hmm. I think I just figured out why I like reality television so much. Don’t hold that against me).     

Lori Lansen’s The Girls is a great example. It’s a lovely, heartbreaking story of the oldest living craniopagus twins (Rose and Ruby are conjoined at the head). Told from the perspective of both twins through alternating chapters, this novel is about the bonds of sisterhood, our dependence on each other, and the struggle to find one’s own identity and voice.  

Told from the perspective of Olympia Binewski, an aging, bald, albino, hump-backed dwarf, Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love is wacky and fantastic, sad and raw, often hilarious, and above all, unforgettable. This book will disturb and engross you. Art and Lily Binewski, Olympia’s parents, decide to maximize the success of their travelling circus by engineering an entire family of freaks through the use of experimental drugs and exposure to radiation. Shock value aside, this novel has a lot to say about the nature of love and jealousy, and about our need for acceptance.  

I recently read Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (author of The Virgin Suicides), and think it also fits nicely within this genre (I know I’m behind the curve here. I mean, the cover even had TWO little decals on it: one for Oprah’s wildly popular book club, and one for the Pulitzer). The narrator is Cal/liope Stephanides, a hermaphrodite whose condition was overlooked as a child, and who was subsequently raised as a girl. Cal eventually decides to run away from ‘corrective’ surgery and live as a man, which gives Eugenides a chance to explore the struggles we face in coming to terms with our choices. The real beauty here, though, is the warmth and care Eugenides employs to tell Cal’s family saga. His Greek grandparents, Desdemona and Lefty, flee a devastated Turkey and immigrate to a richly detailed 1920’s Detroit, Michigan, where they settle into married life and set off a familial cycle of secrecy and shame.  

If you’re looking for a book with dazzling prose, sprawling family histories, or just to lose yourself in the minds and lives of ‘freaks’, give one of these a try, and let me know if you have any ‘Freak Lit’ recommendations for me! 

  Oh, postmodernism…you fickle, fickle beast.  Why can you not be satisfied with one discipline, with working within a single genre at a time?  You mash genres together like Girl Talk mashes songs.  Your manifestations are ubiquitous, pervading our culture, our landscape, and our…. uh, cultural landscape.  You emerged as disillusionment with modernism (and really, who can blame you, I mean modernism is totally lame!) You represent yourself as moving images on highway billboards, as orchestral compositions that celebrate minimalism and incorporate ethnic traditions, as Jane Austen combined with zombies!  Your architecture is art and your art is architecture.   But, my erratic friend, in my opinion your greatest literary achievement is House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski.   

Never before have I read a book that doesn’t merely experiment with fusing genres together, but actually celebrates it (and in such a way that it forces the reader to celebrate it, too).  You see, you don’t actually read House of Leaves, you participate in it.  And I don’t mean that in some hokey, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure for adults type book, either.  Let’s see… House of Leaves utilizes a self-reflexive meta-narrative, there’s third person omniscient, there’s scholarly peer-reviewed journal writing, there’s faux-architecture as narrative, philosophy, scholarly dissertations….And these are simply the genre/structures I can think of off the top of my head. 

Ostensibly, the book is a frame story of a house that supernaturally grows larger.  It adds rooms, doors and closets of unspace.  Total darkness.  But the house doesn’t alter its shape from the outside.  Without giving away too much here, I’ll also tell you that the house ‘grows’ an enormous, terrifying abyss on the first floor.  This book is as terrifying as it is interesting in its own design.  Flipping through, you will find pages that have all but white space and maybe one or two random words on the page; others cram sentences on top of sentences, and as the protagonist’s psychological state gradually devolves, the writing on the page mirrors his fractured psyche.  This creates an unsettling equally agoraphobic and claustrophobic experience. 

I recommend this book for horror lovers, for architectural students, readers of experimental literature and of classics alike.  Readers who enjoy a thoroughly psychological read and above all readers who enjoy taking an active role in reading.  When passing your eyes passively over the page just doesn’t do it for you.  Maybe only in a postmodern tradition can one single work appeal to such a variance of interests.  Oh, postmodernism, you win again you crazy brute.

Woman of TasteBy Cara  Sure, I enjoy reading as much as the next library rat. But after a long, hard day of shushing people and fussing over index cards, I don’t really feel like flopping down with War and Peace. You know?  I do want to read something edifying, but with my limited free time, I need it to really speak to me. Something both practical and soul-satisfying. What I want to read is… cookbooks.  

To some, reading cookbooks might sound about as enjoyable as filing taxes. But now the ailing economy is prompting more people to refrain from eating out and to revisit the world of home cookery. Perhaps if armed with the right texts, they will find it less of a chore and more of a fulfilling pastime. The difference between a merely serviceable cookbook and a great one is akin to the difference between a slice of commercial white bread and a thick, crusty, chewy, yeasty slice of oven-fresh artisan bread. There is potential to lend art to any type of writing, and when the subject is an aesthetic practice such as cooking, it can be rich art indeed. 

A really good cookbook will pull you in with vivid, sensuous descriptions of food you find yourself aching to prepare; and anecdotes of leisurely, handcrafted meals so infused with love and communion that you wonder how we as a society have managed to forget this great daily pleasure. It also helps if the cook has a good sense of humor. It also helps if the cook is a great cook. 

Based on these criteria, here are a handful of spectacular cookbooks-as-books. Great recipes, sumptuous writing, and often pretty to look at as well: 

Julia’s Kitchen Wisdom: Essential Techniques and Recipes from a Lifetime of Cooking by Julia Child

“You don’t have to cook fancy or complicated masterpieces - just good food from fresh ingredients,” Julia says. What else is there to say? 

Passionate Vegetarian by Crescent Dragonwagon 

Her writing is so alive and playful; you won’t be surprised to learn that she’s also penned several books for children. 

The Enchanted Broccoli Forest by Mollie Katzen Readers of Ms. Katzen’s many cookbooks are treated to sunny watercolor images of inviting breakfast tables and studied line drawings of vegetable cross-sections. Her recipes are simply laid out in friendly, unassuming instructions. 

Desserts that Have Killed Better Men than Me by Jeremy Jackson 

A novelist-slash-cookbook author, and can’t you tell? Even the title is fun to read. 

Vegan with a Vengeance by Isa Chandra Moskowitz  

Vegan recipes are often the most flavorful and creative on the block. But unlike many vegan writers, Ms. Moskowitz is flippant and fun without being preachy.  

Those are a few of my favorites. Now, go find some cookbooks that call out to you. And remember what Julia says: “If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?” 

Below is a visual aid representation of the most recent books I’ve read.  They are dividedby before I read any Cormac McCarthy (Pre-Mac) and during or after reading Cormac McCarthy (Post-Mac).  These are novels I consider above average or great, books that stick out in my memory.  I’ve omitted books I began and abandoned. Generally, these books are from oldest to most recently read; however, I am not responsible for these not being in exact order.  (If you are asking a) who else should be responsible, or b) why am I not responsible—I am inclined to answer because one’s memory is fallible and sometimes we even create false memories to better suit our notion of an ideal past.  But, the truth is because I am lazy and simply don’t feel like expending the mental energy to meticulously put these books in order, ok. Let’s just leave it at that.) 

Pre-Mac:  The Boy Detective Fails ®  House of Leaves ® Zeroville ®  History of Love ® Savage Detectives ®  Cloud Atlas ®  ª Norwegian Wood ® Sputnik Sweetheart®  After Darkª ® Atmospheric Disturbances 

Post-Mac:  No Country for Old Men®  The Road ® Blood Meridian ®  Blood Meridian; Or the Evening Redness in the West®  Suttree®  The Orchard Keeper ® Child of God ® The Wild Palms; If I Forget Thee Jerusalem ® Tobacco Road ® One Foot in Eden ® Light in August 

Now, let’s have a look at the Pre-Mac group first.  You will notice that my reading interests while all contemporary fiction, were for the most part varied.  The only deviation occurs between ª.  These books indicate a short spell of only reading Haruki Murakami, and for anyone familiar with his work…can you really blame me?  As far as I’m concerned, this Pre-Mac group represents a healthy variation of books.  For the most part all exhibit different settings and plots, different types of characters, and different writing styles.  This group represents a healthy, ideal reading diet. 

Now, moving on.  As you can see the Post-Mac group shows that not only did I fall into a rut, my reading diet pretty much became static.  When the books weren’t Cormac McCarthy books, I still didn’t venture outside the Southern Gothic/Western genre.  This group represents the opposite of the Pre-Mac group: same author, similar settings, the style largely the same due to author.  Even after I made my way through McCarthy’s stronger works, I still couldn’t find my way outside the Southern Gothic Tradition.  In fact, as you can see, I sunk deeper in the mire, reverting backwards to Faulkner and Caldwell.  What you don’t see here is my attempt to find my way out, to resume my varied reading experience, which failed miserably.   

In closing, what’s the point of this exercise?  What did we learn?  Hopefully, we learned that sometimes finding your favorite author can RUIN YOUR LIFE!  Ok, that’s a bit severe. You see, I’m still stuck.  I’m still mostly reading Southern Gothic Lit, even Westerns which I’ve never had a liking to before.  My advice:  avoid, at all costs, books or authors you can’t find your way out of.  If you find a favorite author, run for the hills!  That author wants to take over your life! Trust me, I know.  Keep as much color as possible on your palette.  Don’t be like me.