Yesterday after burritos and bus passes I stopped by the library to get Kelly Link’s Magic for Beginners, a short story collection. Along the way I picked up several other books, most of which remain unread so far, though I did read the first section in Accidental Species, which contains intriguing and clever word play, but which also comes across as — perhaps — a bit too self-consciously literary.
Talking with Di reminded me of those page-turner Douglas Preston (and Lincoln Child) novels, so I picked up two when I was at the library: Relic and Cabinet of Curiosities.
Yesterday I acquired the most recent Battlestar Galactica episode (season 3, episode 12), which I watched last night after getting home — I spent the afternoon at Fair Trade, where I wrote, enjoyed a coffee, and undertook very little people watching –, and thereafter I picked up Relic and got about two hundred or so pages into it before I decided to go to bed.
The temperature outside has finally dropped far enough — again — that my bedroom gets a bit chilly at night near the walls … a warm comforter is needed (which I have).
This afternoon, after checking email and such, I returned to Relic and finished it by 2p.m. It’s a guilty-pleasure read of sorts, 380 pages of cotton-candy fun, but I do wish the writing were better, or at least more engaging. It’s workmanlike, perhaps. Competent, at least, but not particularly engaging.
Two of the characters — Pendergast and Margo Green — are interesting in a way despite being mere cliches, and thus our interest in them has little to do with them … it is about them as projection surfaces for our own desires. Margo is not just a decently strong female lead who seems to be ethical and intelligent, she faces tragedy and tough decisions. Admirable. Plus she’s a graduate student, so those of us in that situation wish to identify a bit. Pendergast, in contrast, is the author surrogate in a way, the character around whom an author writes book after book. He has aged well and retains a certain handsomeness, he has a sharp wit that he dispenses in doses we appreciate but which do not overpower us, he is rarely wrong, he puts the more arrogant characters in their places, he is supremely cultured, and he even has a catch phrase. “It’s a bad habit, but it’s very hard to break.” The wink and nod are implied, but the delivery is dry.
No Robert Langdon necessary.
I then took a break for food, afternoon tea, and the like. Then back to books.
Ah, House of Leaves.
I began this novel — the first time — in 2005 or so, perhaps the fall of 2004, when Jyoti was in town and Sara and I met up with her for coffee and pastries at the Espresso Royale closest to the library. Our table was midway back, close to the tub for used utensils and glasses, and we sat there as a trio for a while discussing various topics. At some point Sara mentioned a book she thought I would like and gave me the title and author, both of which I forgot, but I retained enough of one or the other to do a search in the library database a day or two later and find the local hardcover copy. “Be sure to get the full-color edition,” Sara had told me. She described it as a horror novel of sorts, and the type that one starts and simply reads to the end in a sitting or two. I fully had that planned when I took it home and began it later that evening, but I was disrupted in my reading by other obligations. I returned to it once more and made it a few more pages into the narrative, at least far enough to sense and suspect many of the structural and narrative tricks and conceits at work.
I liked it.
But alas I did not finish it, and then I had to return it to the library before I left Madison for destinations foreign and domestic. One of my only “road trips” started my travels. In Berlin I thought of the book often, but it was nowhere to be found in the bookstores. amazon.de could get it for me, but for more than $20, so I restrained myself.
Once I returned to Madison I sprang for it, ordering a copy of the “fully remastered” full-color version as a trade paperback, only about $13 from Amazon. Danielewski’s newest novel (Only Revolutions) had just appeared in hardcover, but I held off buying it — I still had the first to read. Once it arrived, along with the X-Men 3 DVD (great taste there!), I put it on a shelf, but described it to several people, including Christoph, who on a Thanksgiving trip to Ohio saw a copy in Half Price Books and then picked up a copy at Borders the next day, and then devoured it over a weekend once he returned to Madison. Midway through he called me. That was Saturday; Sunday he was finished.
I had just finished Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell and was reading The Historian, with Special Topics in Calamity Physics soon to follow. Then I opened House of Leaves. A chapter here, a few pages there. I always felt that I was further into the narrative than my progress through the pages would indicate. I would press the book into the hands of people I knew. “Flip through it!” I would recommend, and they would see the footnotes, the spiral text blocks, the blank pages, the blocks of XXXXX, the photographic plates, index, and more, and gasp in astonishment.
Make reader-growth exponential: when you find a book you like try to get at least two new people to read it. Christoph was number one; I haven’t found a definite number two … I suspect the book intimidates many of my friends, and many of my other bibliophile friends have already read it (including a block of four in Boston). At the laundromat I would make it through a few more pages, on the bus a few footnotes, and on occasion I pulled it out at Fair Trade. But when I finished Relic I was, still, only a little more than half way through House of Leaves, albeit far more than half way through the two explicit narratives (The Navidson Record, and Johnny Truant’s footnotes), and so I sat down and let the text envelop me until around 10p.m. I exited at the back end of the index.
So far 2007 consists of: Relic and House of Leaves. Many more are on my shelves. I am almost finished with David Bowie (currently on “Heroes,” track one of “The Singles – 1969-1993,” Disc 2). 1.3 hours to go. Then Dead Can Dance and Death Cab for Cutie. The beginning of 2007 also witnessed my completion of 7 seasons of BtVS. So far I’ve drawn nearly nothing and written only a few pieces of fiction, all of which have been unsatisfactory. I’ve returned to bread baking; other recipes to follow.
