Books

Read some books!

Really great reading month. Here’s some of the stuff I liked and none of the stuff I didn’t:

Salad Anniversary by Machi Tawara

I write a semi-regular column for the Southwest Review where I interview musicians about what books they’re reading. I’m usually pretty hip to whatever they’ve got. If I haven’t read it, at least I’ve heard of it. But the singer-songwriter/MJ Lenderman drummer Colin Miller tipped me off to this poetry collection from the ’80s, and I cannot express how much I loved it. Tawara writes in the classic tanka form, but she does it in her own particular way, in mostly love poems full of commonplace objects and big feelings kept hushed. I can’t talk about this book right, it’s magic is so specific, but if you’ve ever been heartbroken in a McDonalds, this is the book for you.

The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa

A real acid trip of Biblical commentary, about 1300 years before anybody invented acid. St. Gregory will just pluck up a scripture and start improvising, turning everything allegorical and whipping it up into his own personal frenzy. Can’t say I always agree with his interpretations—as if that even matters—but it was a real pleasure to go on the ride.

Here’s my favorite bit, about Moses on the mountain:

Such an experience seems to me to belong to the soul which loves what is beautiful. Hope always draws the soul from the beauty which is seen to what is beyond, always kindles the desire for the hidden through what is constantly perceived. Therefore, the ardent lover of beauty, although receiving what is always visible as an image of what he desires, yet longs to be filled with the very stamp of the archetype. And the bold request which goes up the mountains of desire asks this: to enjoy the Beauty not in mirrors and reflections, but face to face.

Last Date in El Zapotal by Mateo García Elizondo

Just when I thought I was sick of books about heroin, here comes this little bottlerocket of weirdness and misery. Things get surreal so fast, you’re floating almost transparent between two worlds. As funny as it is sad, and trippy beyond belief, I blew through this in like three hours on an airplane. Big recommend!

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran

Claire DeWitt is my favorite contemporary detective, and Sara Gran’s a real master of this and many other forms (her horror novel Come Closer is an all-timer for me). This is my second reread through the (brief) Claire DeWitt series, and I only wish there were more of them. Surreal and strange and sad and funny, these are wisdom books, like all the best detective stories. On my first read-through, I thought this was the weakest of the series. After this latest time, I’m pretty sure it’s the best. Funny how life and time can change the light on things.

Sabbath’s Theater by Philip Roth

A book beloved and hated equally by the Roth-heads in my life. Wrecked me wide open, though a tough one to recommend, for obvious reasons. I was reading this on another airplane and the flight attendant tapped me on the shoulder to tell me this was his favorite book, which is a totally wild thing to say to a complete stranger. Hell yeah, dude!

Empty Houses by Brenda Navarro

One of the most harrowing books I’ve ever read. Had to finish it in one day because I didn’t want to live in the world of this book any longer, and I mean that as a compliment. Pure agony, written so beautifully and with so much grace. It goes to the darkest places of the human heart and has no interest in judging whatsoever, and God bless it for that. Won’t forget this one.

The Train by Georges Simenon

Total masterpiece. Short little gut-puncher about the specific moment a war begins, how in flight rules change, and morality sort of shifts a little, if only for a time. Little Edens spring up and become wastelands just as fast. I didn’t really know what this book was up to until the end. When I finished I had to go walk around the block a few times. I went back home and I couldn’t sleep, it was way too in my head. Ended up going to a bar down the block to talk to my friend Greg, who keeps bartender hours, just to get myself right again. That’s how good this book is.

No-Gate Gateway: The Original Wu-Men Kuan trans by David Hinton

I’m a big Hinton guy. He’s got this way of getting literal with names and objects but keeping a light, free-flowing, poetic but conversations way with his translations that makes them a real delight to read. This is my favorite translation of the old Zen classic I’ve read so far, just because Hinton’s voice is such a kick. Reminds you how playful these monks were, while still always being so deadly serious. After all, five hundred lifetimes as a fox are at stake! Or maybe not, no not at all.

Letters to Wendy’s by Joe Wenderoth

Weirdo deranged classic. Still holds up. One of many favorite excerpts:

October 10, 1996

Today I’ve been saying “schink” instead of “schunk” as I perform the small events of my persistence. “Schink” is more precise than “schunk,” indicating a narrower, shallower act. Closing the refrigerator—schink—dropping ice cubes in my glass of Jim Beam—schink, schink. It is a tidier existence, as though things were readier to be spoken of. The erosion of the soul is endless.