The Last of the Unpacking

Diary

Ha. YOU probably think nothing could be less interesting than unpacking a bunch of boxes, right? Well, how about this--today I put up the bookshelves and got to unpack the books that will nourish my next twelve months' intellectual life.

Every box had at least one surprise. Some books I would never relocate without taking. Other books I look forward to reading over the next year, especially over the long winter of long nights.

Some of the most exciting examples:

On Moral Fiction, John Gardner. I have always wanted to read this, and I found a copy of the new 25-year edition just before I left the US. As I understand it, his thesis is simply that life is too short to write or even much read worthless fiction. And worthless fiction to him is anything that doesn't conscientiously stand up for what is right. At first this looks like a hazardous position--who's to say what is right? But on second thought, perhaps fiction is the best arena in which to hash this out. After all, its subjects and modes of expression are practically limitless, and it beats the hell out of wars.

The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien. Those who believe that topical fiction can never be deep might want to read this book. Yes, all the stories are about men, essentially men in their twenties, and about the Vietnam war or its aftermath back home...but this is terrific, deep, eminently readable fiction.

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum,, Heinrich Boell. A piercing short novel of the media hounding a young woman out of her mind. I remember being devastated by this when it came out in the 1970s, and I want to read it again after all the reading I've done since, to see if that effect was warranted. Part of this story's power comes from the author's maintaining an almost unbearable sense of fury and outrage just beneath the surface of the text. I wonder how his lawyer survived reading the opening disclaimer: "The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of the Bild-Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional nor fortuitous, but unavoidable."

A Short Rhetoric for Leaving the Family, Peter Dimock. A recent and hard-to-find novella. You can read it at one sitting--and once you start in, you probably will finish it in one sitting. I had always been unimpressed by most fiction written in a hypnotic, incantatory style, but My God this guy got it right. Halfway through the book, once I realized why the narrator told the story in the repetitive, roundabout way he does, I was crushed. A huge influence on my own writing.

It seems that I'm on a roll here with the momunental, sad stories. Bear with me one more. These are all hugely great stories.

The House of Sand and Fog, Andre Dubus. I have passed many a long plane or auto trip trying to decide if this is the greatest novel I have ever read. (And I think it's safe to say that I've read a bunch.) Of all the stories I know set in America and written about it, certainly it is the most tragic. I dare you to read it without moving imperceptibly from outrage to bitter tears. And for me, the tears over the story's content gave way to tears from knowing that I will never, ever be able to write like Dubus. By the way...Andre Dubus certainly wrote the best short story I have ever read, and considered by many to be the best short story in English: "A Father's Story."

What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Raymond Carver. I always wanted to read more of Carver, and this collection of short stories seemed a good way to do it.

OK, all clear. This afternoon I also unpacked some nonfiction that I want to read.

From Dawn to Decadence, Jacques Barzun. I'm not exactly sure how Jacques Barzun has avoided winning the Nobel Prize, except--in what? The man seems to be expert in a number of subjects, and not in Azimov's "My only talent is that I can look things up in encyclopedias faster than you can" manner. Barzun knows a lot and thinks them through in startling ways. And any 95-year-old who can finish a highly informed, heroic book on the past 500 years of Western Culture has my vote.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. I had a pretty good start in Florida on tackling this monster from about the year 1900. Thousands of things I never knew but should have, and an stupendous source of allusive place names for my own fiction.

And then a whole host of books that I probably won't reread here, but that I'm glad to have with me, that were worth lugging across the sea:
Doing it With Style and Manners from Heaven, both by Quentin Crisp.
Collected Poems, E. E. Cummings.
The American Language, H. L. Mencken. Yes, I have all three volumes in a matched set. Eat your hearts out, collectors.
Figures of Speech, Arthur Quinn. The slim, hard-to-find explanation of 60 rhetorical structures. Epanorthosis is my favorite. Or not.
Far Tortuga, Peter Matthiessen. I don't know how this guy writes like this. And I canNOT believe the Nobel committee passed up Matthiessen last year in favor of that relentlessly confused phrasemonger V.S. Naipul.
Simple and Direct, Jacques Barzun's excellent book on writing style, surely one of the 2-3 best on the subject.
Style: Towards Grace and Clarity, Joseph M. Williams. As Williams is concerned with macro issues of compositional structure and writer's intent, this book makes an excellent complement to Barzun's book on words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs.
Making Shapely Fiction, Jerome Stern. The crown on the career of this idiosyncratic and highly underappreciated teacher of writing. A virtual dictionary of fictional situations. But far from feeling confined or limited, the writers I know who have read this book couldn't wait to get back to setting down words, and more meaningful, involving ones at that. What higher praise could there be? My first writing laptop was named after Jerry Stern. May may he rest in peace.

And maybe 150 other books arrived safe and sound. Hooray!

And YOU thought box-unpacking was boring.