Swinging The Bawdy Eclectic, With Sleigh Bells, Updike and DFW

What's an ambitious rock duet gotta do to distinguish itself from all the other riff-raff duets out there? Sleigh Bells surely know, but they ain't telling.



The prestige treatment they received in the glossies prior to the release of their sophomore album was something I hadn't seen since the Followill Boys groused their way to drunken stardom. Every glossy on the stand seemed to offer a blizzard of Photoshopped snaps of Derek E. Miller and Alexis Krauss in full-pout mode. A solid month of facing these two cutie-pies as they copped a surly 'tude made me want to bring them home and liquor them up with peach schnapps, just so I could watch them pee on the roses and puke on the cat.

I settled instead for buying the CD — Reign of Terror — at Walmart, and I've gotta say: I should have stocked up on the schnapps. Reign Of Terror is fine enough. It has its moments of sonic interest, even catchiness, and certainly suggests what must be a terrific stage show. But it's not going to get much repeat play in this household.

Another recent, impulsive CD purchase that won't be getting much repeat play: The Song Remains The Same. In Zep's case, though, I'm very fond of the music and the performances; it's just unlikely that I'll often be in the mood to indulge Jimmy Page's 28-minute attempts at tripping the light fantastic for his New York audience. Nor was he alone. All four of those dudes were ready and willing to unleash solos that ran as long as the average Sleigh Bells concert. I'll say this about that: whenever Zep took over a stage or studio or abandoned castle they made a point of hammering out music that they, at least, would never get bored playing.

A lofty ideal which, if Robert Plant's current attitude is any indication, ultimately failed them. It's also an ideal which the super-fragmented digital culture has lost all track of. Audiences and performers have changed, as they must, but I can't help nursing the codgery thought that today's music is just a wee bit (gasp!) disposable. But so it goes. Lofty expectations rarely serve anyone well in the mercurial world of rock 'n' roll.



I had lofty thoughts of my own, back when I was Sleigh Bells-aged. That was the early 80s, when I spent most weekday evenings penning Very Important Prose in Scribner notebooks. Like any young “artiste” I approached my chosen form the way Houdini approached a pair of handcuffs. Every short story was a brilliant reinvention of the wheel; every longer piece was . . . well, who knows what the hell they were? In the end they became a huge pile of paper in a box.

As I wrote I didn't mentally bother with any of my peers. If the cover of Esquire was any indication, they had yet to distinguish themselves. And while the generation of writers just ahead of me weren't without interest, I didn't pay much attention to them, either. My get-published strategy, such as it was, was to head directly for the king of the hill and push him off with the apparent immediacy of my own brilliant spin on their game. I figured there were three guys who routinely seized the title of America's Most Important Writer: Philip Roth, Norman Mailer and John Updike. Or, as my “peer” David Foster Wallace succinctly described them: the Great Male Narcissists.

My strategy (thankfully) didn't pan out. My peers, however, developed a unified strategy of their own that did indeed distinguish themselves from the GMNs, a protagonist they've shared in common: The Great American Loser. Elaine Blair surveys the field and admits it's a tactic that works, for her and a whole lot of other readers. But at what cost?

It's been curious to me the collective sigh of relief we've breathed at the passing of the GMNs. Roth still stirs a few people because he's still alive and writing, but is either Mailer or Updike on anyone's required reading list? It's been years since I bothered with either of them, so I recently thought I'd try an Updike, to see if the contents retained any sort of potency. I reached for Couples, figuring the voluminous sexual activity would, if nothing else, retain my interest.

After 75 pages I resorted to speed reading. A few more tries at that, and I finally put the book down, unfinished. The sex is boring, chiefly because the women are pliant ciphers. A few hundred pages of that can leave the reader with an impression of a fantasist whose masturbatory goals are best accomplished to the sound of his own voice.

This was a tune the GMNs never got bored of singing. It may be true that in the passing of their voices, our culture has swung decidedly to the fragmentary and disposable. But who could blame us?

My Five Favorite Reads of 2011

The top five stand-outs in a year of pleasurable reading:

#5 -- The Financial Lives Of The Poets by Jess Walter. My review.

#4 -- What Happened Later: A Novel by Ray Robertson. My review.

#3 -- Bangkok 8 by John Burdett. My review.

#2 -- The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes. Here's my review. I loved this book, which is in fact the direct progeny of my favorite read this year:



The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Happy 50th, Binx (and girls).

Figure Drawing For All It's Worth by Andrew Loomis

Mark Frauenfelder's post-slash-rave prompted me to get this recently republished instructional book by Andrew Loomis. I take a closer look, with pictures, over here.

The Long, Strange Trip Is Mightier Than The Pen

I had trouble coming up with a title for this post, which is really little more than an excuse to link to Jeff Baker's erudite review of Acid Christ: Ken Kesey, LSD & The Politics of Ecstasy by Mark Christensen. I link because the conversation turned (briefly) to those lovable hippies and their scribes: Kesey, Vonnegut, Heller, Brautigan, Robbins. Hm. All guys, and most of 'em too old to actually be hippies.

Who am I missing -- besides Erica Jong?

Stuck In The Middle With Franzen

'Tis the silly season for lovers of the printed (virtually or otherwise) word. It all began with the industry that's built itself up around Jonathan Franzen, of course. Time Magazine and a whole heap of others think he's Jesus with a Mac Book; others are sure he's the anti-Christ. This guy (linked via ALD) equates Franzen et al with "our bankers" -- to which I can only say, "Dude: time for a reality check." If there's a family sleeping in their car because Franzen spent five years writing Freedom, let me know at once.

It's either love or hate Franzen, isn't it? I haven't yet read the new book, but I kind of like his earlier stuff. I have very distinct visual memories from The Corrections, particularly of a younger Alfred in a white shirt, standing on a railroad trestle with a ball-peen hammer in hand. Franzen is, were I to resort to a reviewer-cliche, certainly an evocative writer.

Until it comes to sex: suddenly everything feels staged, and his characters have a distant, critical, authorial point of view I simply can't buy. Perhaps I should be the last to cast a stone, but I thought Enid's discussion of family financial strategy while fellating Alfred (complete with the Crumb-y onomatopoeia "glub") was a particularly vexatious low point in The Corrections -- and it occurs just pages after the scene on the trestle.

In the main, however, I do look forward to reading the new book -- as soon as it's available at the local library.

Elsewhere: I can't write in cafes -- especially not in my former place of employment, where everybody really does know my name. But malls? Give me a Bic and scribbler, and I'm off to the races.

Short Responses

I'm liking the Goodreads platform -- perhaps a little too much: the format encourages an Entertainment Weekly sort of brevity. Perhaps the medium imposed the predilection, or maybe age has just made me impatient. In either case I'm increasingly disinclined to give lengthy consideration to perfectly good books.

If you're already a GR member, do feel free to "fwiend" me (I use my real name). If you're just curious, here are a few responses to stuff I've recently read:

Rock & Roll Will Save Your Life by Steve Almond, here.

Pompeii by Robert Harris, here.

Killing Rommel by Stephen Pressfield, here.

What Disturbs Our Blood by James Fitzgerald, here.

I try not to get snarky on this blog, but at GR I occasionally lapse: here are my thoughts on Ellis's Less Than Zero.

And finally, a book my wife (and many others) devoured, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, here.

Everyone's A Comedian: Coming To Terms With The "New New Criticism"

When Jerry Seinfeld announced, shortly after the close of his monumental sitcom, that he was honing material for a new stand-up routine, few people were surprised. He was still a young guy with a lot of drive; clearly a Johnny Carson fade-away was not in the cards. But it had been nearly a decade since Seinfeld had pulled together new stand-up material, and he had some work to do.

Comedian, the documentary that follows his progress back to the concert hall, captures an early foray into the beer circuit. It’s a not-bad set, but Seinfeld is clearly still finding his legs. Following the set, he joins a table of stand-up veterans, and solicits their thoughts.

It’s like throwing a raw steak into a room full of pit-bulls. These guys are only too happy to tell him exactly why his material isn’t funny. In fact, not only is his material not funny, he’s not funny — not anymore. They take him apart, piece by piece, while Seinfeld sips his drink and gives the occasional physical indicator suggesting he might actually be listening.

Given a scene like that, it’s not surprising when a veteran comic downshifts and starts driving below the speed limit. They just naturally reach that point in life when they actually want to join The Sammy Maudlin Show: a couch with a rotating but limited cast of glad-handers and chortling sycophants.



Just how far removed is the world of the published writer to that of the stand-up comic? If this country’s self-designated national newspapers are any indication, not so far. As a comic in all seriousness, allow me to suggest, if I may, the National Post embodies the round table at the back of the bar, while the Globe more closely resembles Maudlin’s klieg-lit comfy couch. Exceptions allowed for, of course, but that’s basically the book review biz north of 49.

We can parse over the benefits and drawbacks of each model — the author pretty much loses either way, by my reckoning — but somewhere in this mess is the audience. Writers write to be read, and God help ‘em if they want to be read by reviewers and critics, ‘cos those jokers want to be read, too, often quite desperately. The best thing for any writer is to stand up and read directly to their public — their intended community. Most audiences are willing to meet a writer halfway; if, under those conditions, the prose falls flat, the writer has a pretty sharp idea what needs to be attended to. Everybody wins.

As for Mr. Alexis’ contention, my sense is his central worry is over a particular community that was probably never there to begin with — a great cloud of witnesses; intelligent interlocutors eager to greet the new golden child of letters: Salman Maudlin, perhaps. Sorry, bub, but if that's the "community" you're after, you're destined for either the couch or the table.

Everybody gets to riff off the written word these days: Marchand, Metcalfe, even me. Blame it on television. Blame it on the po-mo novel gazing that has hog-tied academia. Blame it on teh interwebz. Sure, it’s a bit of a rabble sometimes. But what are you going to do?

These days everyone’s a comedian.

Link love: Here, here and here is the National Post, doing what it does best. For further contrast here are my thoughts on a book I recently enjoyed; here is the Globe's suspiciously enthusiastic take, and here is the Post's enthusiastic take-down. Here ("John Who?") and here ("Alexis is being disingenuous") are two considerate responses to André Alexis. Now go watch Comedian, even if — especially if — you thought you were done with Jerry Seinfeld.

Wither Insularity?

Each culture is primarily interested in its own subject, plus whatever is coming out of America. With that arithmetic, we are even with everyone else. We just don't have a market larger than our own to aspire to. We'll occasionally look to Britain, mostly as something to simultaneously aspire to and rebel against, sort of like our father — but for the most part, we honestly believe we are making the great contributions to culture.

Jessa Crispin (aka Bookslut) addresses insularity, and a few other issues, as she reviews Best European Fiction 2010 ed. Aleksandar Hemon (A), here. Weirdly enough, I can't help but wonder if this "Yo: Dad" posture she describes doesn't mirror Canadian novelists' attitude toward their American counterparts.

Withering, Take 2

Kirkus Reviews is shutting down. I can recall tuning in to quoted reviews on the inside of paperbacks when I was about 15 or so. After a little unscientific tabulating (in my efforts to read Books That Mattered) it seemed to me that NYTBR was significant, but Kirkus was King. According to this link (via ALD) Ron Charles says, "For me, they were the last reliable source of negative reviews." Yes: and positive, too.

Whither The Withering Book Review?

As I ponder the growing pile of books fated to remain half-read by yours truly, I sometimes consider enumerating a few "reader's rules," say, or a list of tropes that, when encountered, will immediately move me to abandon a writer's work. I'd rather avoid such self-indulgence, and here is just one reason why: writers who encounter these rippers actually suffer, sometimes terribly. And where's the good in that?

I am also noticing that I'm growing less interested in the opinions of critics on a broadsheet payroll, even one that's as auspicious as the NYTBR. There is a sweaty, begrudging whiff of "I'm doing the trenchwork, here" that applies especially to fiction reviewing (witness the review in question), and makes the entire enterprise suspect.

It's been a few years since a newspaper persuaded me to buy a book, but magazines* are another story. One example: Sam Anderson's praise for The Brief Wondrous Life Of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz sent me straight to Amazon, for a book I would otherwise have given a pass.

If disinterest takes over said Brief Wondrous Life, I won't admit it here -- but I will over at goodreads. There is something about being a solo voice among the mob that frees up a little of my critical phlegm. Goodreads is also where I give my raves their first draft. If you're curious, look me up (I'm "whiskyprajer" -- natch) or drop me an e-mail.

*Although Paste's list is enough to induce the hangover of the decade.

Post-Script: oops! Forgot the link to Anderson's intriguing survey of Lit-Fic in the Aughts.

James Wood On The Novels Of Paul Auster

Uh-oh. For what it's worth, I think Wood is just about right on the money. However, for some readers (including, at one point, me) Auster's plain-faced sincerity (which Wood finds banal with clichés) is quite charming.

Humbert Humbert. Now More Than Ever

It has been years since I last re-read Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita in its entirety. It became a task, and a difficult one, after my first daughter was born. But sometimes there are good reasons to undertake difficult reading, and here D.G. Meyers presents the most compelling argument on behalf of Nabokov and Lolita I've encountered to date.

I came to it via OGIC, who links to DGM's "Meet Humbert Polanski".

A Girl's Guide To Modern European Philosophy, A Novel by Charlotte Greig

Susannah is a second year university student, carelessly indulging her confusions in a manner that readers of a certain age will quickly recognize. Watching her drift between her two lovers, her capacity to properly attend to matters is apparently questionable, except when it comes to her curriculum. She mulls over her western philosophers as frequently as she considers the benefits and weaknesses of her lovers, or her wardrobe, but with a little more care. Her moment of clarity is foreordained, of course: she becomes pregnant. Since the year is 1974, and the cultural revolution is only now trying to sort itself out, this moment carries a great deal of freight. Can her philosophers help her, or will they only add to her confusion?

I thought Susannah’s head was an agreeable place to be in for 270-odd pages. Charlotte Greig colors in a point of view that is blinkered, but which is generated by an intelligence that slowly gains the confidence it needs to get beyond the worst of its naiveties. Early in the book Susannah watches a male classmate come apart at the seams after taking Nietzsche just a little too seriously. By book’s end she speculates that western philosophy, with its awe inspiring edifices, might just suffer from being an all-male club: sure, Heidegger considered himself “thrown into the world,” but his mother probably had other thoughts on the matter.

If at first glance that reads like a frivolous tweak, closer inspection reveals some enlivening possibilities. Heidegger’s mother could well have been a voice worth listening to, but for better and for worse, the first generation of women to address the established western canon is the one that roughly came of age in the 60s and 70s. Susannah is it, in other words. Readers might disagree with Susannah’s application of Kierkegaard’s Fear & Trembling, but I thought it consistent and of a piece with her point of view, and, more to the point, an emotionally powerful conclusion to the story.

Finally, it’s worth pointing out that I read this book because of a public critic/author dust-up. I’ve got several scattered thoughts on the matter, which I’ll just lay out for consideration. First of all, now that I’ve read Greig’s novel it beggars the imagination how a guy like A.C. Grayling could put the book down then turn around twice and walk right into it with his chin. If his original review had been as thoughtful as his rejoinder to Greig’s riposte, he wouldn’t have made Greig’s own point so spectacularly.

I think Greig’s objection was chiefly correct, and that Greig was considerably more level-headed when making it than some other authors have recently been. But is Grayling's advice that an author “never reply to negative reviews” essentially sound? In this instance, the truth is I wouldn’t have read Greig’s book if she hadn’t. Now it rests comfortably enough on the same shelf as Elaine Dundy, Jill Neville, Nick Hornby and Tom Perrotta. Make of that what you will.

A Girl's Guide To Modern Philosophy by Charlotte Greig (A)

A Year Among The Girls

In 1984, after I'd finished a disastrous year of Bible school, I opted for my first and equally disastrous year of University. Being an empathetic and frequently spineless lad, I figured the job of social worker was right up my alley. I mentioned my ambitions to my father, and he forwarded me to a parishioner who was high up in the mucky-muck of the province's social safety net. This man told me outright, "If you want to be an effective social worker, avoid the University Faculty of Social Work altogether. Take their Home Ec program, instead. Things like money management, nutrition, basic social skills that cultivate self-respect and respect for others, even aesthetics ... these are all qualities that our current system is sorely in need of."

This made sense to me, so I visited the campus and sought out the tiny Faculty of "Human Ecology" (ooo -- PC face-lift. Good sign!). I presented my transcript (fudging on the previous year, writing it off as "a year of travel") and was shoehorned into the program. The class that year was just over 80 people. Only five of us were guys.

A month later, my dad asked me how it was going. I was miserable, and not at all sure I could put in the full year. "Why not?" asked my father.

It was the professors, I said, particularly those in Hum Ec. "They talk down to us. They reduce everything to ridiculously simplistic levels. They treat us like infants. It's nothing like the courses we take in the Basic Arts."

My father was quiet for a bit. Then he said, "Well, I'd say you're lucky to know a little of how women have felt over the last 50 years."

*blink-blink*

Next stop: typing class!

Bookslut links to A.C. Grayling's huffy dismissal of Charlotte Greig's novel, A Girl's Guide To Modern European Philosophy. It's Greig's measured response at the conclusion that brings me back to that dismal year I spent "among the girls." I've not yet read A Girl's Guide, but I've put in my order. The very least one can say about Greig's book is that employing Kierkegaard's Fear & Trembling to explore the issues of gender and abortion is remarkably clever -- in fact, novel -- and potentially profound. I'm looking forward to this.

Update: Grayling seems to have taken a deep breath and posted a civil rejoinder. Civility? In the Thunderdome of Book Reviewing? What's this world coming to?

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD: A Reputation Redacted

When I heard the news that Richard Yates' Revolutionary Road (A) was finally being fast-tracked into production, I ... well, what did I do? I snickered cynically ("Hardly a book begging for movie treatment, really"), I silently appreciated director Sam Mendes' gutsiness, while I audibly disdained his original attempt at this self-same material; then when he enlisted his wife, I conceded I would probably queue up to see the movie in theatres because I'll happily watch Kate Winslett in anything, even if it co-stars Leonardo DiCaprio. And, finally, I checked my face in the mirror, to try on a, "Let's give this a try," look that I hoped would impress my wife with its manly "let's remain open to all the options" demeanor.

As for the book, am I the only guy who thought it was ... funny (resorting to blurbage: "savagely funny")? Poor April Wheeler comes to a grotty end, but Frank is a truly comic figure who, as James Wood points out, gets exactly what he wants by book's end, and isn't fettered with the self-awareness to acknowledge this as a tragedy. Why, Frank Wheeler is as comic a hero as you're likely to find on this side of Beckett -- or Road Runner, actually. Now if you'll excuse me, it's time I put books down and took the trash to the curb.

James Wood on Marilynne Robinson

"I do not always enjoy Robinson’s ecstasies, but I admire the obdurateness with which she describes the difficult joys of a faith that will please neither evangelicals nor secularists" --- here.

A Casualty of the Polysyllabic Spree

Nick Hornby announces he's concluding his column for The Believer. I expect this is very sad news for the magazine. There have been issues that held absolutely nothing that appealed to me -- except Hornby's "Stuff I've Been Reading" column. Quite a feat, that.

Fantastical Writing

I am inordinately fond of John Crowley's Little, Big, a remarkable book in just about any way you'd care to measure it. It's not to everyone's taste, but for those of us who dig it, the book becomes a baptismal experience. Whether the reader plunges in, a la full immersion, or partakes via smaller touches of anointment, the experience of reading it is almost always heady. I went the latter route. I spent five years on my first reading of it. Even the smallest scenes have an ornate romanticism that I wanted to savor, rather than gobble. There are precious few books that can sustain a reader's attention for that length of time. I've developed the habit of purchasing every used copy I stumble across, so that I can take the book with me on trips and leave it behind in the guest-rooms I've stayed in.

Here is Michael Dirda's appraisal of Crowley's just completed Aegypt. I've picked up the first book in this series many times. I've never managed the trick of reading it, though: all those pages are so ... intimidating. Dirda's essay might just give me the courage I need to make a proper go of it. Link via ALD.

This also brings to mind David Langness' rave for Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin (also in the pages of PASTE 38, but not (yet?) available on-line, alas). Langness says, "Winter's Tale is Harry Potter for grown-ups, C.S. Lewis for agnostics, Tolkien for the matriculated, García Márquez for everyone." I tend to think Helprin is a powerful, if not always compelling writer. The first Helprin I read was A Soldier Of The Great War, which was something of a sensation when it was first published. My wife and I took turns reading it to each other during a cross-Canada road trip in our first year of marriage: the perfect conditions for just such an enterprise. The last 300 pages required some motivation on our part to crack open the book, take a deep breath and get into it, but once our inertia was overcome the joy of the experience quickly returned. The book left me with the impression that Helprin, like his titular hero and frequent narrator, was a man intent on expelling every breath in aid of asserting his meaningfulness. I picked up Winter's Tale, expecting to be similarly charmed.

It didn't happen. I've still got it on my shelf; every year or two, I'll pick it up again and give it another go. So far I haven't made it past page 50. I won't blame Helprin for my inability to get into it ... no, wait: on second thought, I believe I will. Helprin's narrative personality is incredibly charismatic; it is large (as in, "Larger than life," which usually means "Larger than your daily tedious chores") and it is forceful, and it is used to getting its way. With any charismatic personality, I can usually get quite a kick out of an evening or two in their presence. Push it beyond that, however, and I start to look at the time and think of the chores that require my attention. So it is with Helprin's charisma. This hardly qualifies as "criticism" on my part -- consider it a deficit of my own personality. Charisma, forcefulness and larger-than-life are qualities that have carried Dostoevsky's novels into a second century of renown; no reason why Helprin's work shouldn't carry over in a similar way.

As always, if you think I'm out to lunch on any of this, the comments are yours.

Signs of Life (Elsewhere)

Alright, it's Grey Cup Sunday, and the two teams fighting for the cup are both from the prairies, so today for my faithful readers I've only got a little link-love. Since Lenny Kravitz is playing the half-time show (isn't he from Moosejaw?) here's James Parker: "We who live in the end times of rock 'n' roll, blighted as we are by melancholy and déjà vu, are nonetheless afforded certain privileges." Rockin' first sentence, followed by near-perfect execution. If this piece were a guitar solo, it would belong to David Gilmour.

And here is one of my fave authors (and poets), Jim Harrison, expounding on the poetry of Chuck Bukowski (who I expounded upon here).

Something (relatively) of substance tomorrow.

Reading Wood via Teachout, and getting to Miles

Terry Teachout has undertaken an unusual posting theme for Tuesdays: 5 X 5, or five recommended books. When he launched the concept, I thought the task he'd set for himself was a tad lofty, even for a guy who writes and reads as much as he does. But yesterday, his second Tuesday, he listed five titles from Mark Sarvas' James Wood reading list. Yes, well ... I have a friend on the south side of the hill who reads more voraciously than I and could provide five new recommended titles for my blog every week, too.

Still, it's quite the list and my eye finally settled on the last of the five — God: A Biography, by Jack Miles. Curiously, this is a book my father recommended to me. Wood is someone I admire for his intelligent criticism, but he's also someone with whom I feel some affinity because he's a pastor's kid who seems to read and write in the hope of discovering something holy. Here Wood uses God: A Biography as a standard with which to judge some of Harold Bloom's religious musings. And here Wood gives Miles' follow-up, Christ: A Crisis In The Life Of God, his full attention.

As for my own thoughts re: Miles, I'm rather embarrassed to admit I haven't read him — yet. And on that issue, I'm sure Reverend Wood and my father could easily relate.