People are always saying "I don't read books." Too often, the problem is reading too many of the wrong books, thus turning a potentially great experience into something they'd rather avoid. This is where _DictionaryGirl_ and PointBlank come in and let you borrow something awesome. Let's go to town and make some recommendations, shall we?

Were all familiar with the canonical classics. But does anyone really think that all the great books that have ever been published have been given their just due? I mean, weve all read a supposed classic and thought, is that all there is? So, by that logic, there must be some pretty damned great books that have gone ignored. Every so often, a writer will publish a book that is at least as accomplished, and just as good as anything else on the market yet for some reason, it simply doesnt make a mark on the general population. Sometimes they arent even published until the author is dead. Sometimes the books simply fall out of favor until someone rediscovers them and a new classic is (re)born.

We all love feeling like we found something that no one else knows about. I like turning people on to those hidden gems that Ive discovered (or have been discovered for me). So, lets look at a couple of my bookshelf favorites that you might not know about yet.

1.Chromos by Felipe Alfau

The story behind Chromos and Alfau is almost as interesting as the book itself. In 1936, Alfau, a Spanish immigrant to New York, published a book called Locos which was fairly well reviewed but was bought by almost nobody. Whether this was because of its style (a proto-postmodernist mélange of Barthelme, Coover, and especially Barth), its difficulty, or the authors rumored support of Generalissimo Franco is up for debate. What is known is that the book disappeared, almost without a trace. Disappeared, that is, until an editor from the Dalkey Archive discovered a copy at a yard sale. Surprised at the high level of talent, she tracked Alfau down to a retirement home and offered to publish it. Instead of taking any money, Alfau simply asked that Dalkey consider publishing his second novel, which he had written nearly half a century before. They did, and in 1990 the novel was nominated for the National Book Award.

The opening is one of my favorites:

The moment one learns English, complications set in. Try as one may, one cannot elude this conclusion, one must inevitably come back to it. This applies to all persons, including those born to the language and, at times, even more so to Latins, including Spaniards. It manifests itself in an awareness of implications and intricacies to which one had never given a thought; it afflicts on with that officiousness of philosophy which, having no business of its own, gets in everybodys way and, in the case of Latins, they lose that racial characteristic of taking things for granted and leaving them to their own devices without inquiring into causes, motives, or ends [. . .]

The book takes place in New York (writing in English, Alfau joins writers such as Conrad, Beckett, and Nabokov, who did much of their great work in foreign languages) and concerns a group of Spanish immigrantsAmericaniardswho are habitués of a bar called El Telescopia. From the title, and even the name of the bar, one can guess that time, and its abilities to telescope, that is to seem to move too fast and too slow at the same instance will play a large part in the book. The émigrés complain about the lack of time in New York, where no one stops for even a moment. In fact, the novel itself is bracketed by a story that seems to pause as the rest of the story is taking place. There are also books within books, dead characters who return from Alfaus previous work, and characters who both argue whether they are too American, or too Spanish, mostly through a lesson on the correct way to make paella. Thankfully, this isnt, a dry study in postmodernist technique, nor is it a book where characters talk endlessly about their circumstances. While there is an ominous undercurrent stalking the Amercaniards, there is more than enough drinking, dancing and humour to fill several lesser books. Chromos is a book that takes an unflinching look at life and its problems, but it obviously written by a man in love with living.

Chromos is available through The Dalkey Archive, one of the greatest small presses in America.

2.Epitaph Of A Small Winner by Machado De Assis

Unlike Felipe Alfau, Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis is not an unknown writer. In fact, he is probably considered one of Brazils greatest novelists. That, of course, doesnt stop him from being nearly anonymous in the rest of the world (America, Im looking at you!). What the two do have in common is their prescient ability to use postmodern techniques several years (and in the case of Machado, nearly a full century) before they would become codified. Assis, in fact is most often compared to that ur-postmodernist Lawrence Sterne and Epitaph of a Small Winner is often seen as his Tristram Shandy.

He, as well, can write a heck of an opening:

I hesitated some time, not knowing whether to open these memoirs at the beginning or at the end, i. e. , whether to start with my birth or with my death. Granted, the usual practice is to begin with ones birth, but two considerations led me to adopt a different method: the first is that, properly speaking, I am a deceased writer not in the sense of one who has written and is now deceased, but in the sense of one who has died and is now writing, a writer for whom the grave was really a new cradle; the second is that the book would just gain in merriment and novelty. Moses, who also related his own death, placed it not at the beginning but at the end: a radical difference between this book and the Pentateuch.

For me, that paragraph just about perfectly sums up what is so great about Epitaph of a Small Winner. That balance between, in the first statement about the author already being dead, meant to surprise the reader, is a great stylistic trick, but then in the second phrase, he admits that its also a great trick to keep the reader interested and to sell books. The ironic comparison to the Pentateuch at the end is just the sort of self-effacing and satirical humor that makes this book so much damned fun. Machado takes much joy in skewering the hypocrisies of nearly everyone, and hes been called the greatest satirist since Swift. Since his targets arent (always) those obvious, evil people of power, he also has the ability to make the reader sympathize with those he is mocking, not to mention that his biggest target is, more often than not, himself.

Epitaph of a Small Winner is available now. Please note that its original (Portuguese) title is Memorias Postumas De Bras Cubas.

Hey, while we're at it: why not let me know what some of your secret books are and, as always:

Join us again next week for a word or two-hundred from _DictionaryGirl_! If there's anything you'd like to see here, never hesitate to let us know.

Thinquar

United Kingdom

March 2007

APR 29, 2007 04:10 PM

I honestly can't remember the last time that I didn't have at least one book near me that I was reading. It saddens me when people say to me 'I dont read books'. They really dont know what they are missing. I've been reading books since I was about 9 years old, and they are an integral part of my life. I shudder to think of all I would have missed out on if hadn't turned that first page so long ago.

malkav11

Saint Paul, MN

July 2003

APR 29, 2007 04:40 PM

Going off on a total tangent from:

PointBlank said:
Unlike Felipe Alfau, Joaquim Maria Machado De Assis is not an unknown writer. In fact, he is probably considered one of Brazil's greatest novelists. That, of course, doesn't stop him from being nearly anonymous in the rest of the world (America, I'm looking at you!).

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

The thing that probably irks me most about American culture is how happy we are to export our own literature, music, films, and so on, while simultaneously being incredibly resistant to importing foreign entries into those media. It's getting better, but it's still very difficult to check out foreign media; books, especially. I'm particularly thinking of Japanese novels. With how popular Japanese movies, television shows, games, and comics seem to be, you'd think novels would be a natural step. But it seems to be one largely untaken.

That said, there've been a few books (on which movies were based) that have made it through my hands that I think are well worth investigating. Specifically, Koushun Takami's "Battle Royale", and Koji Suzuki's Ring trilogy. I imagine anyone familiar with Japanese cult cinema has heard of "Battle Royale", but if you haven't:

Briefly, the premise is that a fascist government has been controlling Japan ever since WWII, and it has a pet "research" project wherein it selects a junior high class each year and places them into a defined area (for the book's story, a small inhabited island) which it clears of any existing inhabitants. There the students are fitted with explosive remote-detonated collars, issued a small pack of supplies including a single "weapon" (which ranges from a fork to an assault rifle), and sent one by one into the area. Their assigned goal: to kill each and every one of their classmates. Since this isn't exactly going to be a natural inclination (for most people), there's a time limit. And every hour or two, a specific sector of the area is declared off limits. Anyone still inside at that time has their collar detonated. Anyone who tries to leave the area entirely, same thing. Which sectors are off-limits, along with the most recent kills, are announced every six hours over loudspeakers throughout the area. It's an admittedly extreme premise, and it sounds like it's basically just exploitation fare, but it honestly evokes the horror of the situation quite well. I'd also call its depiction of how the various teens react to having the social struggle turned lethal pretty realistic except for a couple of spoiler characters. The ending's a tiny bit of a cop out, but I really don't think I could have handled anything else. The film is excellent, but as ever, the book's much better.

And of course, "Ring" is the book that spawned the Japanese film that spawned the American movie. The basic storyline is the same: teens find a mysterious videotape that kills the viewer not long after they watch it. One of the teens that dies in this fashion is related to a reporter, who starts looking into it. Neither film faithfully reproduces it, however. The reporter is male and not very socially adjusted. His friend isn't a boyfriend like in the movies, but a rather disturbed individual he knows. The menace of the tape never emerges from the television set in the most striking scene of both films, but rather infects the victim with a virus. Etc. Instead of being a severely creepy ghost story, it's more psychological horror (though the ghost is still involved in a much more low-key way.).

The sequel is called Rasen (sold as Spiral here in the US) and no, it has nothing to do with the craptastic US Ring 2, nor that much to do with either of the Japanese Ring sequels. It's the creepier of the pair, especially given its rather shocking (and apocalyptic) ending, but to say much about the plot would be to spoil entirely too much both of it and Ring. I've yet to read the final book, Loop (dunno the Japanese name), but after the close of Spiral, well...I eagerly await doing so.

jeseryn

Foxboro, MA

March 2006

APR 29, 2007 04:48 PM

It's nice to read the heavier stuff ocasionally but in my opinion if you want to hook people into reading drop the pretentious stuff (if they were interested in expanding their minds to that extent they'd already be readers) and hand them a solid bestseller to read for pleasure.