Chekhov’s Mistess

I find myself consistently disappointed with the New York Times Book Review these days (although I agree with the 7/18 Leonard piece that I won’t mention anymore than in passing). The latest bit of specious writing comes from Laura Miller in her piece “How Many Books are too Many?”

The ostensible impetus behind the article was the recent Bookwire report trooping out the imposing statistic that 175,000 new books, including new editions, were published in 2003. That same report states that general adult fiction titles, numbering 17,021 were down almost 2%, the first decline in 13 years. This decline, the report seems to say, could be due to the wave of interest in non-fiction titles since 9/11.

Miller’s true motivation for the article, I imagine, is the widely lamented decline of the literary fiction segment of the publishing industry in favor of the same “20 books” that everyone reads. That’s a valid complaint, if indeed that is what she’s trying to say, but it’s hard to tell.

She states the problem by posing a question:

“As more and more books are offered to the same number of readers, the question hardly anyone dares to ask is: how many books are too many?”

Yes, there are the same or fewer readers, but who determines how many books are too many? Surely people are buying these books; publishers sold 2.5 billion books in the year 2000, according to the NEA.

Finally, after discussing the rotating “wall” of books at the chains that seems to overwhelm consumers, thus leading to the before-mentioned homogenization of successful books, she comes to what I think is her real point. She concludes by posing this question:

It sometimes seems everyone wants to take up writing, is (incorrectly) confident of success and plans to get to it any day now. But what good is a hammer in a world without nails? If everyone is writing and publishing books, who will find time to read them?

This absurd conclusion, is I suppose intentionally hyperbolic to make a point, but what that is, I’m not sure. Should we not write and all become passive readers? (The two activities are inextricably linked.) No, that can’t be right; the Christina Nehring’s Times article says we shouldn’t do that. And, according, once again, to the NEA report, only 1% of American adults took a creative writing class in the year surveyed. So it would appear that not everyone is a writer then.

So what if there are lot of books published every year? Is that the source of the demise of the mid-list author, or serious literature or book reviews? Doubtful. And if it were, her article did little to make that point.

I believe that Ms. Miller’s intentions are in the right place, despite using a new statistic to rehash the same complaint without adding anything. But as one of those writers whom she seems to think should give it up, I found her piece mere snobbery. Perhaps the reason nobody dares to ask the question she so boldly poses is simply this: it’s not relevant.




p.s. For an interesting commentary on Nehring’s “incoherent” essay, see The Reading Experience.

The stats from R.R. Bowker’s (Bookwire) press release U.S. book production are as follows (2003 data, % change is from prior year unless otherwise stated):

175,000 new titles and editions, up 19%

22, 914 new titles by the largest trade houses, up 2.4% – of which 45% of all new titles were adult fiction and juvenile literature.

12,003 university press new titles, down 2.2% – psychology and religion showing significant increases.

50.8% increase in new titles from ten years ago for all U.S. publishers

17,021 general adult fiction titles, down 1.6% – the release points out that this is one of only three categories to show a decline, and the first year in the past 13 that fiction did not register an increase.

Juvenile titles increased a “stunning” 45% gain to 16,283 titles, and adult biography, history and religion increased in the double digits, while arts, business and travel titles declined “significantly.

Quoting directly from the release:

10,877 new publishers registered for International Standard Book Numbers in 2003, an increase of 226 (2.1%) over 2002.

California is home to 16,787 publishers, far more than any other state, and more than double the 7,371 located in New York State. New York City still leads all U.S. cities and 45 of 50 states with 3,347 publishers.

51% of all new titles published in 2003 by the three largest print-on-demand publishers were fiction, poetry or drama. These categories accounted for 57% of all titles published since 1998 by the same POD houses.

“The growth in adult non-fiction categories, first seen in the months following 9/11, accelerated in 2003,” said Andrew Grabois, senior director of publisher relations and content development for New Providence, N.J.-based R.R. Bowker. “The question for publishers to consider in the coming months is whether the public’s interest in current affairs is a new swing of the pendulum or a passing historical moment. For now, publishers will try to produce new products to satisfy a market caught up in the drama of war, partisan politics and the cultural divide. In fact, the large trade houses are publishing so many new titles in the scholarly disciplines that one day soon they will surpass the annual output of university presses in these categories and begin to compete for the same customers.”

Mentioned in this post: Nabokov, T.S. Eliot, Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland & Through The Looking Glass, Children’s Literature that isn’t, The Uses of Enchantment.

I probably overuse the phrase “literature is a conversation.” What I mean is that the “great” literature of the world is a continuation, a furthering, a deepening of the relationship between a writer and everything that came before it. Without that, reading and writing would be meaningless. For some of us, that conversation can seem a frenetic burden when you are sitting over at the kiddie table, trying to listen in. So, that as it is, I was reading the introduction to the Annnotated Lolita and ran across, among other things, to a reference to Nabokov’s regard for Alice in Wonderland. I began to think about the connection between T.S. Eliot, the “March Hare,” and other serious references to Alice, and wondered why it had never dawned on me to read it. So I did.

We have a couple of copies in the house (Lynn was an English major and is a Children’s lit expert), so I picked it up, knowing that it was already very much a part of my consciousness. I was curious, but low in expectations. You’ve guessed by now that I loved it (actually not completely done with because I’ve been doing TypePad stuff), but it’s really amazing! It is a constant riff of word play, involution and irony and metaphor. And yes, the references to things familiar are fun too.

I’m just now getting an idea of the depth in so-called children’s literature that those of us who like “serious” literature, at least me, took for granted. [I have a seven month old, so it’s a bit early, but he already has Sandra Boynton’s oeuvre under his belt and the fact that he doesn’t immediately try to eat them seems to indicate his approval. Even though it’s beside the point of this writing, it’s worth mentioning that my favorite is Not the Hippopotamus.] Lynn introduced me to Shel Silverstein – The Giving Tree is a poignant story and far more meaningful to the parent than the child.  I will soon dust off my old copy of The Little Prince, which my mother gave me, and so on as I delve into this part of the “conversation.”

Hearing of my new interest, a friend recommended Bruto Bettelheim’s The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, which I have not yet seen. And I have long been a fan, particularly through Italo Calvino’s anthology, of folktales, which might be the genesis of what we think of as fairy tales.

So it would seem that the best of this lot is not necessarily for children (A recent Bookforum article on Hans Christian Anderson comes to mind, but I can’t find the issue. It said that his stories were not at all for children, but were perverted through the mores of the day and translation into the form that we are aware of now). Perhaps too, this idea extends into adult literature. Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time comes to mind, and J.D. Salinger must have known while writing Holden’s Adventure’s in Wonderland, what Tolkien did: that in youth exists a pure voice where the world’s hypocrisies are exposed.

None of this comes as a surprise, except for, at least to me, the fact that this stuff is really great literature. Perhaps all those in favor of graphic novels should have a look at some children’s books. More on all this later, and perhaps we’ll have Lynn as a guest blogger on the subject of Children’s lit that isn’t, and her fascination, which I do not share, with Harry Potter. She’s already in my ear talking about Roald Dahl, so I guess we’ll have to have her on soon.

p.s. Foreward has a link to some manuscript images of the precursor to Alice that look interesting.

Books Mentioned:


Amazon.com: Books: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage Contemporaries)” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400032717/qid=1090034031/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-2229159-9088749”>

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Vintage Contemporaries)

This is the Norton Critical Edition, which I am reading for the notes.
Amazon.com: Books: The Giving Tree” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060256656/qid=1090035796/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/104-2229159-9088749”>

The Giving Tree


Amazon.com: Books: Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0151002746/qid=1090035904/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-2229159-9088749?v=glance&s=books”>

Inventions of the March Hare: Poems 1909-1917


Amazon.com: Books: BUT NOT THE HIPPOPOTAMUS” href=“http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0671449044/qid=1090036042/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/104-2229159-9088749?v=glance&s=books”>

BUT NOT THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

I’ve been off the posts for a couple of days moving over to TypePad. This, I think will be the final move after having been at Radio Userland and Squarespace for short stints. One was too hot, one too cold and I think TypePad is just right. All of these hosting services are great with features differentiating them, so I have nothing against the others. So here we are, all moved in and I’m tired of dealing with site stuff and hope to be back to content quickly.

Although I should add, fellow bloggers, how cheap and easy it is to get a domain name for your site. I don’t know if there’s any good reason for it, but at nine bucks (at godaddy.com), why not?

This just in from email:

Join us on Wednesday, July 14, at Housing Works in NYC for a reading with PAULA FOX, NATHANIEL BELLOWS, and MELVIN JULES BUKIET as they read selections from their work in The Paris Review. Housing Works is located at 126 Crosby Street. Subway: S,F,V, 6 to Broadway-Lafayette. N, R to Prince St. Reading begins at 7 PM. FREE.

Topic: Nabokov, Annotated Lolita, Borges and Joyce, Speak, Memory, Strong Opinions, Zembla.

In regard to literature, you could call me a late bloomer, except for the fact that my petals are still huddled close together reading the exemplars of the art, awaiting the day that I will consider myself well-read; that glorious day, I project to arrive upon entering nonagenarianhood. That’s a pretentious way of aying that for someone who loves reading, there’s a lot of obvious stuff that I haven’t touched yet. Among hem: I have not read Lolita, Vladimir Vladimirovich’s American masterpiece.

The funny thing, considering that I’ve not spent much time on his works, is that Nabokov is aesthetically right up my alley. His use of language, like Borges and Joyce, astonishes me and sends my imagination floating so that I have to use a pencil to keep my place and to take notes on the thoughts provoked by it to keep my feet on the ground. Although there’s a part of me that wishes that I already had all of Nabokov’s work as part of my consciousness, I relish still having the experience of reading Lolita and so many others ahead of me (actually that’s a big lie, I wish I was at least on my second reading of everything, everything!).

I have previously read some of VN’s short stories, which are amazing, and his Lectures on Literature from Cornell, which are occasionally tedious, but well thought out. I have also been tempted to read his translation of Eugene Onegin, but shied away because of his opinions on the translation itself.

I am reading The Annotated Lolita, which Alfred Appel put out nearly thirty years ago (It probably has the worse cover design of any book I’ve seen, but I’ll let that slide). I have only started the lengthy introduction and VN’s afterward. I can say so far that I’ve enjoyed Mr. Appel’s contextualization immensely and would gladly pick up another of his books (His personal anecdotes with VN are entertaining (themselves.)

I will probably read Speak, Memory and Strong Opinions alongside and have begun to search for articles relating to VN’s works on the web. I don’t want to overdo it so much that my Lolita reading gets lost in the critical muck, but I do like to chew my food thoroughly.

So far, I have found some reviews at the New York Review of Books archive (subscription service), although there is not much there that relates directly to Lolita. Zembla on the web looks like an interesting source of information as well, and through that site I found that among the many places that Mr. & Mrs. Nabokov lived/stayed was 35 W. 87th St, a place he described as “A dreadful little flat.” 60 years later, I lived at 50 W. 87th and can say that our place too was dreadful. There are other websites, but Zembla seems to be the most interesting and the others can be Googled, so there’s no need for me to go into them now.

I intend to share a few thoughts and perhaps a portion of my swelling vocabulary as I begin in earnest my Nabokov experience. If it proves to be boring for you, please stop me; my wife certainly will.

Mentioned: National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) research report, Gioia’s presentation, avid readers vs. frequent readers, literacy in Africa.

The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) released a research report that unhappily concludes fewer Americans spend their leisure time reading “literature.” Literature here is defined as essentially anything fictional, but despite the lack of specificity in terms of the quality of what we are reading, the report indicates a general trend towards NOT READING AT ALL.

I’m not sure where all those people muscling their way through the line at B&N come from then, but beyond questioning the dramatic conclusions of the report, I wonder why the government always insists on spending money on telling us things that we likely know already. The much heralded report – 300 people were in attendance at the NY Public Library for Mr. Gioia’s presentation – should come as a surprise to no one. Also, the report claims the obvious in its conclusion that the demands of reading literature can’t keep up with competition from electronic media, which by its nature, requires less mental effort.

Hopefully though, we are at some sort of nadir in our il-leisurely-literacy, because “at the current rate of loss, literary reading as a leisure activity will virtually disappear in half a century.” Okay, that’s dramatic.

Lastly, I just want to say that I can no longer call myself an avid reader. That lofty title is reserved, according to the NEA, for those that read 50 or more books per year (no matter if they are pulp or Pushkin). So I am now categorically a “frequent” reader (12 to 49 per year). Thanks NEA.

The original report is at NEA – Reading at Risk.

p.s. If you think we have problems, the World Bank says that the average illiteracy rate in Africa is 45%. But of course, that reminds me of the quote by Mark Twain (I hope I have this right) “The man who doesn’t read is as ignorant as the man who can’t.”

p.p.s. I was feeling that my entry on this topic might appear anti-NEA or flippant toward the decline of reading in this country. None of that is true. Certainly, my opinion toward anything governmental, which is always tinged with skepticism, is at odds with what I see as a need for “moral” leadership on the part of government to support the arts, which are indeed facing a crisis of disinterest in the land of the brave.

Topics: Proust’s Birth Anniversary, reading at Mercantile Library of New York, Lydia Davis translation.

While Proust Fest Seems Like an Oxymoron, (He was hardly a festive fellow) The Proust Society of America and the Mercantile Library of New York are having just that on the occasion of his birthday, this Saturday, July 10th. The Proust-Fest consists of a marathon reading of the Combray sections of Swann’s Way from 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 p.m. They are using the Lydia Davis translation, and I could be wrong, but I thought I saw a sign that said that Ms. Davis would be among the readers.

Reservations for 2 hour blocks of time are required. Call: (212) 755-6710. Admission is $5.

Mercantile Library of New York

17 East 47th Street, NY, NY

info@mercantilelibrary.org

I have renamed this blog to Chekhov’s Mistress to signify its dedication to literature. That’s a tall order. I started this site (at a different address) a year ago, mostly writing about politics. That was rewarding in a way, but now talking politics is like being “in” on the stock market of the ’90s. Writing about books presents unique challenges: Literature by its nature is serious and intense and demands attention; it is a topic of less broad interest than, say politics, but those that are interested know what they are talking about (which can’t be said about politics), and there is little room for winging it. I hope that by focusing my efforts on one topic area (with some personal dispersions, which I will chalk up to fiction writing), I will create a readable and worthwhile stop on the blog trail.

The name Chekhov’s Mistress comes from a famous quote that he made in a letter: “I look upon medicine as my lawful wife and literature as my mistress.” Therefore, this site is dedicated to those that eat their daily bread from a job and feed themselves from the art of the word on the page.

Kafka, death, quotes from diary

Franz Kafka died at the age of 40 after leaving a legacy of some of the richest literature of the century. Today is his birth anniversary, so I thought, on this holiday weekend, instead of writing anything myself, I would copy out an entry from Kafka’s diary. I tried to pick something that is, I believe, indicative of many entries in the personal journal of the man who wrote Metamorphosis.

24 January, 1922:

How happy are the married men, young and old both, in the office. Beyond my reach, though if it were within my reach I should find it intolerable, and yet it is the only thing with which I have any inclination to appease my longing.

Hesitation before birth. If there is a transmigration of souls then I am not yet on the bottom rung. My life is a hesitation before birth.

Steadfastness. I don’t want to pursue any particular course of development, I want to change my place in the world entirely, which actually means that I want to go to another planet; it would be enough if I could exist alongside myself, it would even be enough if I could consider some spot on which I stand as some other spot.

Franz kafka: The Diaries, 1910 – 1923, edited by Max Brod

Schocken Books, New York

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