Literature: Words About Jazz

I'm reading a great novel about jazz musicians in pre-war Berlin and Paris. Half-Blood Blues, by Esi Edugyan, tells the story of a group of American and German jazz players who had been successful playing in the clubs of 1930s Berlin but had to hide and eventually run from the Nazis. The group includes African American musicians who found less racism in Europe and Germany, some of them of mixed African and German descent.

The story, the history and the evocation of time and place are wonderful. But I was struck by this passage about playing the music. In this scene, a young, scrawny black German trumpeter first comes to play with an established group of musicians, who are skeptical that he can even hold his horn. The narrator is Sid, a bassist from Baltimore.

But when he lifted his horn, we gave him a respectful silence. His trumpet was a cheap-lookin thing, dented, like a foil-wrapped chocolate been in a pocket too long. He put his rabbity fingers on the pistons, cocked his head, his left eye shutting to a squint. 

"Buttermouth Blues," Ernst called back to him. 

The kid nodded. He begun to tease air through the brass. At first we all just stood there with our axes at the ready, staring at him. Nothing happened. I glanced at Chip, shook my head. But then I begun to hear, like a pinprick on the air -- it was that subtle -- the voice of a humming-bird singing at a pitch and speed almost beyond hearing. Wasn't like nothing I ever heard before. The kid come in at a strange angle, made the notes glitter like crystal. Pausing, he took a huge breath, started playing a ear-splitting scale that drawn out the invisible phrase he'd just played. 

The rest of us come in behind him. And I tell you, it ain't took but a minute more for me to understand just what kind of player this kid was. He sounded broody, slow, holding the notes way longer than seemed sane. The music should have sounded something like a ship's horn sounding across water -- hard, bright, clear. The kid, hell, he made it muddy, passing his notes not only over the seas but through the solid too. Sounded rich, which might've been fine for a older gate, but felt fake from him. The slow dialogue between him and us had a sort of preacher-choir feel to it. But there wasn't no grace. His was the voice of a country preacher too green to convince the flock. He talked against us like he begging us to listen. He wailed. He moaned. He pleaded and seethed. He dragged every damn feeling out that trumpet but hate. A sort of naked, pathetic way of playing. Like he done flipped the whole thing inside out, its nerves flailing in the air. He bent the notes, slurred them in a way made us play harder against him. And the more we disagreed, the stronger he pleaded. But his pleading ain't never ask for nothing, just seemed to be there for its own damn sake. In a weird way, he sounded both old and like he touching the trumpet for the very first time.

Another Representative Paragraph

I've recently started reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, by Helen Simonson. I chose it based solely on its cover, of course. so far, it's been a fine book, worthy of one of my periodic representative paragraph posts.

The following is a part of a paragraph near the start of the story, as Major Pettigrew, a 60-ish widower is riding in the car of Mrs. Ali, a widow from the village with whom he seems to be falling in love. It's a rainy, gray day.

She laughed, and the Major turned his head to look out of the window at the fog-soaked hedges of the lanes. He was aware that he no longer felt chilled. The hedges, far from being grim and soggy were edged to the last leaf in drops like diamonds. The earth steamed and a horse under a tree shook its mane like a dog and bent to nibble freshly moistened dandelions. The car broke from the hedged land and crested the last rise of the hill, where the road widened. The town spread down the folded valley, opening out along the coastal plain. The sea lay gray and infinite beyond the sharp edge of the beach. In the sky, a rent in the fog let down pale shafts of sunlight to gleam on the water. It was as beautiful and absurd as an illustrated Victorian hymnal, lacking only a descending angel trailing putti and rose garlands. The little car picked up speed as it headed down and the Major felt that the afternoon was somehow already a success.

A Representative Paragraph

Every once in a while, I like to post here a representative paragraph from a book I'm reading. Usually, it's from a favorite author and this one is no exception.

I'm just finishing the novel Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman. I've read it before. It was worth another look. here's part of why:

It is a small world. You do not have to live in it particularly long to learn that for yourself. There is a theory that, in the whole world, there are only five hundred real people (the cast, as it were; all the rest of the people in the world, the theory suggests, are extras) and what is more, they all know each other. And it's true, or true as far as it goes. In reality the world is made of thousands upon thousands of groups of about five hundred people, all of whom will spend their lives bumping into each other, trying to avoid each other, and discovering each other in the same unlikely teashop in Vancouver. There is an unavoidability to this process. It's not even coincidence. It's just the way the world works, with no regard for individuals or for propriety.

Echoes of a Scream

I just finished The Hakawati by Rabih Alameddine, a Lebanese American writer, painter and one-time engineer. This is a fabulous book, exploring modern and ancient Arab, Muslim, and Lebanese life and culture. It is filled with wonderful stories -- myths, fables, lessons -- woven into each other like the many peoples who made Beirut such an interesting melting pot in the years before its civil war.

Much of the mythological portion of the book is the long tale of the great Sultan Baybars, who rose from slavery to dominion over all of the Islamic world. He is opposed by Arbusto, who tries, and fails, many times to prompt the overthrow of the ruler he feels has unjustly taken the throne.

At one point, in trying to inspire an army to victory, he offers a familiar-sounding speech:

"This is the city of Aleppo," Arbusto said. "Not only are we going to thrash them here, we are going to Damascus and Homs and Hamah, and we going to Baghdad and Mosul and Jerusalem, then we are going to Cairo to take back the sultanate. Yeeeeaaaah."

In fact, this speech, or one very like it, appears twice in the book.

Interestingly, towards the end of the book it becomes clear that Baybars is, in fact, an unjust king and the many stories of his glory are ancient public-relations efforts.

Echoes within echoes.

Books in 2009

I've chosen a tool to try out as my books and reading tracker for 2009. I was looking for a way to track my reading for the year; different from the WordPress blog I tried in 2008.

I did some poking around and looked into several different book-lover sites. I also considered creating a Google Docs spreadsheet to track my books. But when I took a look at goodreads, set up to "improve the process of reading and learning throughout the world," I decided to give it a shot.

It looks like it will allow me to maintain a list of books organized into "shelves." I'm starting with to-read, currently-reading, read, library-book, and owned. I may add more later. It comes with lots of metadata about books built-in and is set up as a social site, encouraging reviews and recommendations among users.

I've added a goodreads widget to the left-hand side-bar. It tracks books as I finish them. We'll see how it works out.

I'm In Sync With Delaware Public Libraries!

When I started my 2008 Reading Log at the New Year, I had no idea that I was pre-joining a new program about to be offered by the Delaware Public Libraries.

The Delaware Division of Libraries' Center for the Book has announced "Between the Lines," a journaling program designed to help readers use journals to "help them direct their free-choice learning to achieve self-awareness, self-improvement and self-empowerment." The program includes hard-bound spiral notebooks that participants can use to record their reading and their thoughts about their reading.

That's pretty much what I've been doing with my Reading Log. I swiped the idea from Jessamyn West (a librarian), but it's a fairly standard blogging approach.

I plan to stick with my on-line journal, but I think I'll try to attend the workshop the Libraries folks are offering later this month at Lewes Public Library about Between the lines. It's one of a series they plan (PDF).

I'm a big fan of the public library, especially my library here in Lewes. It's where I find so many great books.

Damn You, Art Garfunkel (Shakes Fist)

I'm feeling very eclipsed by the singer Art Garfunkel just now. Not because he's a better singer than I am; that's been true longer than I've been alive. I'm pretty much used to that. No, what has me feeling beaten is Art's reading list, which puts my new Reading Log blog to shame.

I started a 2008 Reading Log to celebrate the new year. I plan to post the titles of, and a bit about, each book I enjoy his year. You may have noticed the Book Log RSS feed I've placed in the left side column.

This is not a new idea. I swiped it from the librarian Jessamyn West.

But today, reading the New Yorker magazine, I came upon a report on the Garfunkel Library, "a chronological index of the thousand and twenty-three books that he has read since June, 1968." Forty years of reading, recorded on loose-leaf paper, and now posted on the official Art Garfunkel web site.

That's some impressive obsessiveness, Mr. Garfunkel.

RIP (and Thank You) George Macdonald Fraser

I was saddened to learn of the death yesterday of the author George Macdonald Fraser. Fraser, a Scot, created the Flashman series of novels, which have given me a great deal of pleasure over the years. He was 82. The cause of death was cancer.

Fraser had served in India during World War and worked as a journalist in Glasgow before becoming an author and screenwriter. The original Flashman novel started that portion of his career in the late 1960's. In it, he took a minor character in 19th century literature and imagined him into one of the greatest cads in English fiction. His novels are great fun and feature well-researched and accurate historical people, places, and actions.

He also wrote a wonderful memoir of his military service (Quartered Safe Out Here), and a series of short-stories inspired by that period of his life (the "McAuslan" stories). He wrote a parody of pirate books (The Pyrates) and a handful of novels set in Victorian and Elizabethan England. His screenplays included several "musketeers" movies and Force Ten from Navarone.

George Macdonald Fraser was a fine writer. He has left us an impressive body of work. Thank you, sir.

In Troubled Times, Where Shall a Bruised Nation Turn for Soothing Ironic Distance?

I found myself drawn to this recent headline from The Onion: Nation's Crumbling Infrastructure Probably Some Sort Of Metaphor.

The satirical "newspaper" recounts recent infrastructure failures and notes that these failures are "forcing many to question whether the nation's rapidly deteriorating roads, contaminated drinking water and groundwater, and run-down schools could perhaps be a metaphor for something."

"Everywhere you turn you see improperly maintained railways, structurally deficient bridges—not to mention billions of gallons of untreated sewage flowing directly into our groundwater," said Adam Perry, a representative for the ASCE. "Is there an underlying message here? There are so many layers, and each one is so subtle and nuanced, that I'm hesitant to make any kind of blanket statement about what this means 'for America.'"

"I think our overstretched and increasingly obsolete infrastructure might symbolize something important," Perry added. "But what?"

I find myself missing that sort of irony-heavy satirical commentary now that the TV-writers' strike has darkened the nation's airwaves. I wonder where to turn for the acerbic commentary I once depended on The Daily Show to provide.

As it happens, commercial television is not the only place to find such content. As we turn away from reality-TV, we are rediscovering thoughtful, written cynicism in all manner of formats, from traditional printed books and magazines to on-line blogs and, for the more adventurous, personal conversation.

Aside from The Onion, there are other goofy-news sites such as ScrappleFace, McSweeney's and the (somewhat NSFW) Daily Mash over in the United Kingdom. There are sites featuring humorous writing in general, such as Francesco Explains It All. And the TV writers are creating new on-line video content in their own cause at Speechless.

So, as the writers' strike drags into a new year, and we resign ourselves to television without great wit, people around the nation are re-discovering the joys of literature, learning about alternate media, and indulging in conversation.

And some -- a brave few -- are starting to express their own, very personal, satire.

''Oh, my god, the fan fiction.''

StumpJumper, over at Denied Intervention, points us to a story in the New York Times about the sexual orientation of a major character in the Harry Potter books: J.K. Rowling Outs Hogwarts Character.

At a reading and Q&A session, author Rowling was asked by a young fan whether Albus Dumbledore, the powerful and positive grandfather figure who leads the Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Magic, ever finds "true love."

"Dumbledore is gay," the author responded to gasps and applause.

I don't think Ms. Rowling intended to imply that being gay precludes finding true love. She went on to explain that the great wizard had had a tragic love affair earlier in life. I think that puts him into the "only one great love" category of fictional folk.

My take on elderly deus-ex-old-guy characters like Dumbledore is that they exist beyond the age of any romantic entanglement. And for the span of time covered by the Potter that seems to be the case.

Of course, any good writer will know the back-story of all of her characters. And given that a percentage of any group of humans is gay, it makes sense that there should be some gay folks in Harry Potter's world.

Banned Books Week

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift
Originally uploaded by hatcher.library

The week of September 29 through October 6 is Banned Books Week. This is a week when those of us who read should remember those books that folks, for a wide variety of reasons, have tried to take out of our hands.

The list is long and diverse. Would-be censors right, left and center have all challenged books. The urge to stifle thought that we don't agree with is universal; we all have a duty to combat that urge within ourselves.

It is interesting to note that more than "banned" books, we now speak of "challenged" books. These are books that someone is trying to keep us from reading, either by banning or by raising an un-holy stink about them.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom points to this quote from Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451):

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Thus we see campaigns that complain loudly about certain books. They may or may not call for book-banning, but they all can lead librarians, teachers, parents and readers to shy away from certain books. And that is not good.

Why I Read Jasper Fforde

Here's how Jasper Fforde begins his latest Thursday Next novel, First Among Sequels:

The dangerously high level of the stupidity surplus was once again the lead story in The Owl that morning. The reason for the crisis was clear: Prime Minister Redmond van de Poste and his ruling Commonsense Party had been discharging their duties with a reckless degree of responsibility that bordered on inspired sagacity. Instead of drifting from one crisis to the next and appeasing the nation with a steady stream of knee-jerk legislation and headline-grabbing but arguably pointless initiatives, they had been resolutely building a raft of considered long-term plans that concentrated on unity, fairness and tolerance. It was a state of affairs deplored by Mr. Alfredo Traficcone, leader of the opposition Prevailing Wind Party, who wanted to lead the nation back onto the safer grounds of uninformed stupidity.

I am not ashamed to declare that I like absurdity. And Mr. Fforde offers inspired silliness in all of his novels that I have read so far. I plan to read more.

I Think I Like This, Sam I Am

Dylan-parody, as an art form, is about played out. But I've never heard anything like this: Dylan Hears a Who!

Why didn't anyone else think of this? Bob Dylan (classic 60's voice version) singing the words of Dr. Seuss.

I think this version of Green Eggs and Ham is definitive. But that's just me.

Literary Parallels. Again.

I've been reading a new book called Winkie this week. It's a story about a teddy bear of that name who has somehow become sentient and wandered off into the woods to live. When the book opens, Winkie has been arrested by Homeland Security and is on trial as a terrorist.

The meat of the story (so far, anyway) is the bear's recollection of life as a toy to several generations of one family. He's remembering and reflecting as he sits in a cell awaiting trial.

I was struck by the similarities to the Patrick O'Brian novel Richard Temple, which I finished a week or so back.

In that book, the title character is in prison in southern France where he's been captured by the Gestapo as an English spy during world War II. As he recovers from torture, he remembers his pre-war life as a hungry artist in London.

I suppose prison-recollection is a fairly common literary device. Still, I find it interesting to see it applied in two very different character studies.