"Level Up," by Gene Luen Yang

I don’t usually read graphic novels, but there have been a few I really enjoyed, such as Posy Simmonds’ “Gemma Bovery” and “Tamara Drewe,” modern takeoffs on classic novels. Another that I enjoyed was Gene Luen Yang’s “American Born Chinese,” which aptly captured at least one character’s view of being part of this particular demographic. I have just read Yang’s new graphic novel, “Level Up” (First Second, 2011), with art by Thien Pham. The main character, Dennis Ouyang, feels constrained by his dead father’s dream for him to become a gastroenterologist (ironic in that Dennis gets sick to the stomach easily), when all he really wants to do is play video games. He fell in love with Pac-Man and Super Mario Brothers when he was a young kid, and ever after felt the tension between what he “should” be doing and what he loved doing. The story of this tension is the focus of the book. It is an evocative portrayal of the burden placed on young people -- Asian or not -- who feel it is their duty to fulfill their parents’ wishes even when those wishes are very contrary to the young people’s own dreams. To Yang's credit, he makes both sides -- father and son -- sympathetic. Using the form of the graphic novel to portray this tension is very effective, with the absorbing, somewhat wistful drawings reinforcing the spare-but-powerful writing. It is easy to read this book quickly, but I urge readers to slow down to appreciate the details of the drawings, and the way the language and the art reinforce each other.

Sometimes I Just Don't Want to Read It

Sometimes I read a review of a book and I feel “I SHOULD read that.” It is significant, and/or it is by a great writer, and/or everyone will be talking about it. But it just doesn’t sound like a book I would like. Maybe the subject matter doesn’t interest me, or the book is too “experimental” for my taste, or it sounds like it will be extremely painful to read. Usually I try to read more reviews of the book, to learn more about it, in case the first reviewer just emphasized an aspect I tend not to like, or framed the book in a way that didn’t appeal to me. Sometimes I will flip through the book at the library or at a bookstore, to get a better sense of it. Sometimes these actions make a difference and I DO decide to read the book. More often, I don’t. I may feel a slight sense of pressure (guilt is too strong a word) about not reading it, and/or I may feel that I am being lazy or narrow or picky by avoiding a well-reviewed and well-regarded book that happens not to immediately appeal to me. But the older I get, the easier it is to trust my sense of whether a book is one I will like or not. After all, I -- like all readers -- have only so much time to read, and so I have to choose what I read with some awareness of that limitation.

In Praise of (and Defense of) Short Stories

A reviewer in today's San Francisco Chronicle Book Review, Wayne Harrison, begins a sentence as follows: "In a literary landscape where short-story collections have been hammered smooth of risk and possibility in MFA workshops..." (p. F4). I agree that this assessment might be true in some cases, but it is a vast generalization (probably made to be provocative, and to highlight the book under review in contrast, but still...) that does not acknowledge the work of many wonderful short story writers writing today. Here I list (and I have written about many of these on this blog) some of these gifted writers of original, creative, surprising, enlightening, enjoyable, impressive stories (in no particular order, and in a list that does not claim to be complete):

William Trevor
Alice Munro
Edith Pearlman
Deborah Eisenberg
Julian Barnes
Colm Toibin
Jhumpa Lahiri
Margaret Drabble
Ann Beattie
Margaret Atwood
David Leavitt
Lori Ostlund
Valerie Trueblood
Carolyn Cooke
Ann Packer
Deborah Willis
Robin Black

I know that many readers of fiction do not particularly enjoy short stories, preferring the longer novel, and I respect that opinion. However, as much as I too love the novel form, I believe that such readers are missing out on some absolutely terrific fiction found in short story collections by authors such as those I have listed above.

Guest Post: On the Closing of Borders Books

When I heard about Borders Books closing, I felt sad. Although I am an advocate for independent bookstores, the closing of any bookstores, and especially so many throughout the country, is a huge loss. There is also the Ann Arbor connection; as a former resident of the Ann Arbor area, I feel a sentimental stake in Borders. But I haven't lived in Michigan for many years, so I asked my friend Mary, who has lived in Ann Arbor most of her adult life, to write a guest post about the closing of Borders, and she kindly agreed. (Mary is the one who suggested my starting this blog back in January 2010, and who generously contributed other guest posts on 3/7/11 and 4/15/11.) Her post is below.

Mary's guest post:

Borders is closing, and it makes me sad. It's true that for a long time it has not been the charming, stimulating, delightfully literary haven it was when I first shopped there. I moved to Ann Arbor in 1973, and at that time there was a tiny Borders, overflowing with used books, with artsy posters covering the walls. A couple of years later it was moved across State Street, into a big rambling space, with lots of dark wood shelves, nooks and crannies, and a steep staircase leading to a mezzanine filled with many more books, as well as some of those artsy posters. Here and there were built-in wooden benches -- the first time I had encountered seating in a bookstore.

Tom Borders, one of two brothers who started the store, created a computerized inventory system which was innovative at the time. Ironic, considering the computer was eventually the downfall of the chain now called Borders. But that is now. Then was a different story.

Borders, then, was a place to go and browse, and read, and buy, but also to learn things. Its inventory was not stocked with a hundred copies of every best seller, but rather with seemingly every book on every subject imaginable. And if you couldn't find what you wanted, there was always someone there who would help you, and probably teach you something too. There were employees who were experts in each subject area, but every employee was well-read and well-trained. Apparently there was a daunting test that prospective employees had to pass, covering all manner of literary topics. Many of the employees had advanced degrees, and the longtime manager there was so knowledgeable that he was revered in a town full of scholars.

I stopped by one of Borders' "superstores" this evening (10% off everything -- the liquidation has begun). It is a lot different than the original store. There are toys, CDs, DVDs, and a huge section of cards and novelty items. There are no experts waiting to teach me things. The Borders I remember has been gone for a long time. But as I browsed the store one last time, I felt sad to lose even this version. I miss my hometown bookstore.

"The John Cheever Audio Collection"

Planning for a recent car trip, I was browsing in my beautiful local library for a book-on-CD to accompany me on the trip. “The John Cheever Audio Collection” (Recorded Books, 2003) caught my eye. I pondered. Did I want to spend six and a half hours in Cheeverland? I have read many of Cheever’s stories, and liked them. I looked forward to spending those 6.5 hours in New York and its upscale commuter suburbs, the locales that Cheever wrote so precisely and evocatively -- and sometimes so painfully and depressingly -- about. His observations are always so razor sharp, so spot-on. His characters are both predictable and unexpected. Oh, and alcohol is a constant presence, reminding us of what a big part alcohol played in the affluent suburbs of the 1950s and 1960s, for both social and self-medicating purposes, and evoking a whole way of life during that time period. All in all, I thought, yes, I would like to spend that time with the Cheever stories. So I did. And I am glad I did. The selections include some of Cheever’s classic, best-known stories, such as “The Enormous Radio,” “The Five-Forty-Eight,” “O City of Broken Dreams,” and probably most famous of all, “The Swimmer.” Greatly enhancing the pleasure of listening to these stories is the fact that they are read by Meryl Streep, Edward Herrmann, Blythe Danner, George Plimpton, Peter Gallagher, and the author himself. What a treat to listen to these fine readers read these wonderful stories!

Always Reading, Always Writing

I was recently thinking about what a huge proportion of my day is filled with reading and writing. I read newspapers, books for work and pleasure, magazines, journals, letters, documents, email, Facebook, other online websites and blogs, memos, signs, bulletin boards, and more. I write letters, postcards, emails, syllabi, lesson plans, tests and exercises, lectures, conference proposals and papers, articles, book chapters, books, manuscript reviews, tenure and promotion reviews, notes for committee work, my ubiquitous to-do lists, grocery lists, posts for this blog, and much more. I am thinking about the sheer amount of time I spend with words. I am sure this is true for many of you as well. It is hard to remember that for much of history, people spent little or no time on reading and writing, and even now, there are people all over the world, including in the United States, who cannot or do not read and write, or do so only very minimally. I don’t say that spending as much time as I do on words is necessarily a good thing, but it is a major fact in my life and work, and a very large part of who I am.

"The Arrivals," by Meg Mitchell Moore

I have always loved stories that follow the classic Jane Austen pattern of gathering a few characters into a small place and then letting them interact. “The Arrivals” (Little, Brown, 2011), by Meg Mitchell Moore, does this, with an intriguing twist: Ginny and William’s three adult children all come home suddenly one summer, one by one, bringing their various family members, troubles and issues with them. Suddenly the house is full to the brim, noisy, messy, mostly loving but sometimes tense and difficult. Lillian brings her two young children, leaving her briefly unfaithful husband Tom behind, and is trying to decide if her marriage is over. Stephen and his wife Jane’s planned two-day visit turns into several weeks when pregnant Jane is put on emergency bed rest. And Rachel, who has just broken up with her boyfriend and gotten tired of her seemingly dead-end job, and is broke, drags herself home to recuperate. The events of the novel are both mildly dramatic and soothingly familiar -- very much like most people’s lives, most of the time. All the family dynamics come into play, with some mild snippiness and thoughtless behavior and words, but because everyone is basically nice, and basically loving, there isn’t too much drama or trauma to be had on this account. There are a couple of briefly scary scenes, but all is resolved quite quickly. Some readers might find the book a bit lacking in plot, but not I. To me, the interactions among the family members and the few outside characters allowed into the story are amply interesting. Although the initial setup is somewhat artificial (but clever!), the characters and their interactions seem quite realistic. Well, maybe Ginny and William are a bit too saintly, but they love their children and want to help them, even when they sometimes guiltily wonder how long they are all going to stay; after all, the pleasures of cooking and cleaning and doing laundry for, and worrying about, six extra people wear thin quickly. I won't give away the ending, but I will give a little hint: no, don't worry, they don't stay in the family nest forever.