September 2006

   Nahguib Mahfouz died recently, and I'm sorry to report that's how I discovered him. I hustled over to my local library and borrowed Palace Walk, the first volume of Mahfouz's Cairo Trilogy, the story of a Muslim family in Egypt at the end of World War One, when Egypt was occupied by the British. It is a magnificent 500-page domestic drama. I've ordered the Everyman's Library edition of the trilogy--1360 pages for $22.  1.3 cents per page. I can't wait to read it—the man was a genius; he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1988. I've been a little wary of the Noble Laureates since studying with Joseph Brodsky (Nobel for Literature, 1987) who gave me the feeling that I'm quite a few IQ points shy of their mesosphere. Brodsky, with that sexy Russian accent (oh, you don't put the word sexy next to Russian?) recited Auden and launched tirades about how Americans lack classical educations. He smoked with impunity, required us to memorize masses of poetry, graded my final paper "B for Bearable," and ultimately had more impact that any professor in my rather lengthy education.

 George Pelecanos. The Night Gardener.  Pelecanos is the Chicago blues of authors. His territory is the dark streets of D.C., brutal yet tender tales of hard cases and working stiffs. I'm a huge fan of his from way back, and he may finally be getting the recognition he deserves. I'm crazy about all the nouveau noir guys: Price, Fussilli, Connelly, Lehane, etc., but will someone please tell me who the noir gals are? Besides Douglas Anne Munson, who I mentioned last month, and who is deceased.

  Paper Lion, Confessions of a Last String Quarterback by George Plimpton. Hate to admit it, because I admire Plimpton and love football, but I didn't finish it. Plimpton joined the 1963 Detroit Lions, during the preseason, a journalist disguised as a 36 year-old quarterback hopeful. He's a great storyteller, but it just didn't grab me. I do, however, highly recommend Sports Illustrated's Fifty Years of Great Writing. Every week I read two magazines cover to cover—Sports Illustrated and The New Yorker; and you literary elitists take note: SI has excellent profiles and features. Fifty Years has pieces by, among others, Steinbeck, Faulkner, and DeLillo. The annual Best American Sports Writing is an also excellent series.

 The novels of Graham Greene have become something of a touchstone for me, particularly The End of the Affair, The Heart of the Matter, and The Quiet American. I just re-read The Quiet American and I don't know how he does it. That economical prose— does any other author who is not a poet pack so much into a sentence? Politics, romance, friendship, loyalty--he has such a delicate touch, you don't even know he's there.

  I have been thinking about tragedy. I use that word loosely, to describe my novel Defending Violet, but I need a better understanding of tragedy, (in literature, not life). I'm planning to take a look at Aristotle's Poetics (take that, Brodsky!) and Hamlet, as well as more modern novels that are considered tragedies. Notice I said "take a look at." Can I slow down enough, find a quiet enough space (external and internal) to read Aristotle? I don't know, but I'd sure like to avoid the Cliff Notes version. If you have any suggestions on the subject of tragedy in literature, please send me an email.

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