"First Light"

I wrote about Charles Baxter's novel "Feast of Love" on 3/22/10; one of several reasons I liked the book was its setting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, because I once lived in the AA area. I recently picked up, and read on the plane to and from a conference in Chicago, one of Baxter's older novels, "First Light" (Penguin, 1987), which also takes place (mostly) in Michigan, but this time in the Saginaw/Bay City area, where my parents and other family members once lived. There are two unusual characteristics of this novel. First, it starts in the present and moves backward in time, throughout the lives of the main characters all the way to early childhood, gradually revealing the roots of their relationships and choices in life. Second, the two main characters are brother and sister, a relationship seldom focused on in literature. Hugh was frequently told by his parents to take care of Dorsey, his younger sister. He always felt responsible for doing so, especially after their parents died young. The lives of the two siblings are very different; Hugh is a car salesman who dropped out of college, stayed in his parents' town and house, is in an unsatisfying marriage, and is the father of two young girls. He is reliable and caring, but there are moments when he is envious of Dorsey, who is an accomplished astrophysicist married to a loving but unfaithful actor, mother to a deaf son who is very well-adjusted, and moves around the country. There are various subplots, but the heart of the story is the sort of sibling dance between Hugh and Dorsey, and Baxter keeps us interested in their relationship and their stories.

The Art Institute of Chicago

Today's blog post has little to do with books or reading, but I enjoyed visiting the Art Institute of Chicago today so much that I want to write about it. At the end of a professional conference, I took time to spend a couple of hours at this marvelous museum. I first went there with my friend Mary during our college years, and have been there a handful of times since, but not recently. This time, as always, I made straight for the Impressionist rooms; the collection is large and quite wonderful. Then on to the photography exhibit, focusing on the work of Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, and Berenice Abbott; Abbott on changing New York, Bourke-White on the South during the Depression, and Evans' iconic photographs published in James Agee's book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men" were highlights. I am always especially drawn to the faces... Then a stop in the Asian art section, especially to visit the sculptures from South India, where I lived and went to school as a child; these are immensely evocative for me. After a few other stops in this vast museum, I ended with a tour of the Thorne Miniature Rooms, in which rooms from European and American history are portrayed on a very small scale. And there I found my connection to books, justifying this blog entry: at least three of the rooms were libraries!

What I Read Online

Most of us spend enough time online now to count it as part of our daily reading. I try to limit my time online, but I see that it has gradually crept up over the past few years. Below is what I usually read online.
Daily:
1. E-mail, of course! This includes personal email, email related to my university, email related to my academic work, email from various organizations I belong to, etc.
2. Facebook. I know there are pros and cons, but I enjoy being in touch with so many people from different parts of my life. And my FB friends alert me to various news stories and social/political issues as well.
3. The New York Times. I read the headlines, and read a few articles in more detail.
4. InsideHigherEd. This is a sort of newsletter for academics.
5. The Writer's Almanac. I have written about this before; this comes from NPR; there is a daily poem, and some information about a couple of different authors or other literature-related topics.
6. Michael Bauer's blog on restaurants and issues related to dining out. Bauer is the San Francisco Chronicle's restaurant critic.
Sporadically:
1. Blogs by my USF colleagues.
2. Other restaurant blogs (besides Bauer's).
3. The Huffington Post.
4. Other political blogs and websites when I am alerted to them by my FB friends.
5. Blogs that let me catch up on what's happening on my guilty-pleasure TV shows that I don't actually have time to watch.

Conference Reading and Writing

Since it is conference season for me, I have been thinking of all the types of reading and writing that go into professional conferences. Each type or genre has its own requirements, its own peculiarities. First, those who hope to present papers must either be invited or submit proposals. Proposals usually include a 200-300 word summary and a 50 word abstract for the program. If one’s proposal is accepted, then the paper itself needs to be written. The classic conference paper is about 20 minutes long, and is read aloud, sometimes with a few added improvisations along the way. Papers are usually accompanied by power point slides and/or handouts and/or reference/resource lists. Variations on the classic paper include the plenary or keynote speech (longer, more prominent), the colloquium/panel (comprised of several papers and often a response from a discussant), the workshop (more hands-on), the brief research report, the poster session, and the facilitated discussion group, all with their own writings and readings. Other conference related writings/readings are the various conference calls for proposals, announcements, reminders, the conference program (often a fairly thick, handsome book), and numerous flyers found around the conference site (more calls for papers for more conferences, announcements of meetings, etc.). Then there is the vast exhibit hall where publishers exhibit their books, especially new books. I have found that it takes me a couple of hours to go through the hall, and I usually buy (or when fortunate, am given) several new books. And more writing everywhere: the message board, lists of tours and local restaurants, signs on the doors of conference halls and rooms, and more. As befits an academic gathering, attendees are surrounded with language throughout the whole process. I find myself appreciating and enjoying most elements of this onslaught of words. And although I am too busy at conferences to read much else (a quick look at the daily newspaper and at my email is about all I manage), if I want my daily dose of reading in one form or another, I only have to look around me at the conference site.

"Play It As It Lays"

When I think of “Play It As It Lays” (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1970), by Joan Didion, as I actually have fairly often over the years since I first read it, I think of her iconic, anomic portrayals of Los Angeles, and in particular of the indelible scenes of the main character Maria’s aimlessly driving the Los Angeles freeways for hours and days at a time. Didion’s characters, connected to or on the fringes of the movie business, seem for the most part to be a sad bunch. Her locales in and around Los Angeles (as well as in Las Vegas) are sad and depressing as well. Having just read (and written about here on 3/21/11) another California book, Alice Adams’ “The Last Lovely City,” I was struck by the contrast. Adams writes of the beauty of San Francisco, and of comfortably affluent, quietly strong, get-on-with-it women; Didion never focuses on the beauty of her Los Angeles surroundings, and writes of lonely, depressed-despite-their-affluence-and-even-near-fame women. Granted, Didion’s book was published in 1970 and Adams’ in 1999, a time period during which women’s lives and opportunities opened up dramatically. But although both books are clearly of their time periods, those time periods are not the main point. Not surprisingly, the almost elemental, depressing scenes of “Play It As It Lays” stay with the reader longer than the more nuanced, more purposely ordinary scenes in ”The Last Lovely City.” And Didion’s characters, the people surrounding Maria, mostly seem to lead empty lives, as well as being highly unlikable. It seems that unhappy always trumps happy in literature, at least in terms of lingering in the reader’s mind.

"The Last Lovely City: Stories"

I have mentioned before that I enjoy the late San Francisco writer Alice Adams' fiction. I read most of her fiction in the 1980s and 1990s, but haven't read much of her work for some years now. However, on a recent trip, I re-read one of her short story collections, "The Last Lovely City" (Washington Square Press, 1999), and thoroughly enjoyed it. I admit I took it partly because it is a slim paperback that I picked up at the library sale, perfect for slipping into my carry-on bag for the airplane. But reading Adams' work again reminded me how beautifully she writes. She makes it look effortless, so much so that her work is in danger of being undervalued. But besides loving the gorgeous descriptions of San Francisco (where I work) and Marin County (where I live), I was impressed by her portrayals of strong but understated women. Her women characters are mostly middle-aged, and almost always middle or upper middle class, sometimes with professional careers (for example, one main character who appears in several stories is a psychiatrist) and/or sometimes married to men with professional careers. They live comfortably. Some might dismiss them for those reasons. But Adams does not allow us to label or stereotype these women. They are not perfect by any means; however, they endure difficulties but (mostly) take them in stride, make a minimum of fuss, and get on with their lives. They live through love affairs, breakups, marriages, divorces, moves, and other life changes. Adams writes about these with great insight but with a very light touch. I am now planning to go back and re-read some of her other fiction.

"Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas"

One of my Christmas gifts was the book “Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas” (University of California Press, 2010), by noted San Francisco essayist and environmentalist Rebecca Solnit. It is a lovely, fascinating book that is hard – no, impossible! – to categorize or adequately describe, and well worth reading. Each chapter has a theme from San Francisco history and culture, illustrated with a beautifully drawn and colored map showing places that relate to that theme, along with other drawings and photographs, and accompanied by an essay either by Solnit herself or by another notable San Francisco writer. The themes are far from predictable, and there are fanciful but meaningful juxtapositions that are illuminating as well as great fun to read. For example, the map in the chapter “Monarchs and Queens: Butterfly Habitats and Queer Public Spaces” shows these two sets of places within San Francisco and how they overlap, and is illustrated with butterflies and a gorgeous drag queen in butterfly mode. The essay accompanying this chapter is written by my USF colleague, the noted poet Aaron Shurin, and is a masterful, moving, inspiring mini-history of gay and queenly history and places in San Francisco. He ends the essay as follows: “This is a map of a place people come to for wingspread and wigmaking, for monarchial identity and queenly conversions, for animal nature and long morning light; for soul.” A few other chapter titles will give you an idea of the breadth and originality of the themes: “Green Women: Open Spaces and Their Champions”; “Truth to Power: Race and Justice in the City’s Heart”; “Poison/Palate: The Bay Area in Your Body” (gourmet locations juxtaposed with hazardous locales); “Who Am I Where? Quien Soy Donde?: A Map of Contingent Identities and Circumstantial Memories”; “Dharma Wheels and Fish Ladders: Salmon Migrations, Soto Zen Arrivals…” and many more. The book is beautifully made, clearly a labor of love. “Infinite City” is obviously of particular interest to those of us who live and/or work in San Francisco, and to all who love the city. But I believe it will also be of interest to anyone who is interested in culture and social issues, as well as to those who love maps, atlases and wonderful writing. Further, it will appeal to those who believe in books as powerful cultural, artistic, and social forces.