Chekhov's Mistress
One Book Meme
Passed to me from James Marcus. Here are my answers:
1. One book that changed your life?
Every book I read changes my life just a little bit by nudging itself into my consciousness and broadening my experience beyond the four walls of my own life.
Forced to pick one, I seem to remember The Great Gatsby as the book that introduced itself to me as literature and turned me into an avid reader.
2. One book that you have read more than once?
Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man was the first book that made me engage language as I had never done before. The first time I read it I didn’t know what the hell happened, the second time the book sang.
I don’t often read books more than once except that I re-read pieces of books quite a bit. I’ve read Dante’s Divine Comedy several times because it’s great and reading the Musa and Ciardi translations is something like reading two different books. Joyce’s Ulysses and Borges’ work are some that I turn to often.
3. One book you would want on a desert island?
Some individual collections I ‘intuitively’ feel would be good on a desert Island, Hart Crane, Czeslaw Milosz, Joseph Brodsky, Rilke, Neruda…
4. One book that made you cry?
5. One book that made you laugh?
6. One book you wish had been written?
7. One book you wish had never been written?
A Million Little Pieces – being that the entire affair was ‘handled’ by a million little publicists into just another event – a triumph of money over truth.
8. One book you are reading currently?
Paul Muldoon’s The End of the Poem (Oxford Lectures). Poetry doesn’t exist in a vacuum, Muldoon shows the way through some really great and unexpected poems.
9. One book you have been meaning to read?
Taking that question to mean from the list in my head of ‘must-read’ classics, Robert Musil’s The Man Without Qualities, which I promised myself I wouldn’t start until I’ve finished Proust – good luck.
10. Pass it on:
comments
James Marcus seems to bend towards the “Oirish” of Joyce, O’Brien, and Muldoon. Great choices; if he bends his elbow to raise a pint of French-infused Guinness, he might enjoy Raymond Queneau’s We Always Treat Women Too Well (On est toujours trop bon avec les femmes) re-published by NYRB a few years ago.
A ironic potboiler farce (!), it is set during the Easter 1916 Rising. Anyone who likes the Voice of Joyce, Flann the Man, or the poetic Muldoon cartoon would enjoy this wee odd one…
– jon curley (10/09 at 02:53 PM)
thanks jon - should make it clear that these are not james’ choices, but mine. and yes, I do like queneau.
– Bud (10/09 at 03:05 PM)
bud,sorry for the oversight. perhaps too much of the brown stuff left me staggering out of the bar and mind. cheers, point well taken.
– jon curley (10/09 at 08:56 PM)
Thanks for the tap on the shoulder, Bud! 
– amcorrea (10/10 at 09:19 AM)
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