Condalmo

New Etgar Keret story.

Enjoyers of Etgar Keret will be pleased to learn that This American Life will have a new story by him on this weekend's broadcast.  That's my prediction.

By the power of Strunk & White... I AM A DOORRRRRRRK.

I would absolutely love to get my hands on this and would listen to it all the damn time.  I know what you're thinking, ladies, but sorry, I'm off the market.

Audiobook review: "Then We Came to the End."

My review of Joshua Ferris' Then We Came to the End - the audiobook - can be seen amongst other editorial reviews at Amazon, and is forthcoming in the print edition of AudioFile.

The Dying Animal and American Pastoral.

I'm listening to Roth's The Dying Animal.  Am I a bad man for thinking it's soooo much better than Roth's lauded American Pastoral?  Um, it is.  All I remember about AP is a guy named Swede, a bridge, and a barbeque.  DA, it's so ... well, misogynistic. But Roth, that's where he shines, isn't it?  Kepesh is an a-hole (at least on disc one) but you can smell the pleasure Roth had in writing it.  AP felt like a chore, like Roth was putting the pieces where they were expected to be by awards judges.  DA is looser.  I haven't read the other two Kepesh books (The Breast and The Professor of Desire; I own the latter) but this one's got the goods.  Again, 1/4 of the way through.

Kakutani didn't like it, as she found Kepesh unsympathetic, which I'm not sure is all that disappointing to Roth, but Franzen, it makes him mad, it's not fair!!!  A.O. Scott, she felt bad for Kepesh, which, hmm, we'll see. 

Here's a picture of Roth thinking about writing something that will make you angry, and not caring.

Here's Charlie Brown.

Riches in your ears.

I continue to get most of my RDA of fiction from audio.  The most recent installment of PRI's Selected Shorts was a good one, with stories being read including Ernest Hemingway's "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place," and his "After the Storm," as well as Haruki Murakami's "The Little Green Monster." 

The New Yorker has a new story available as well (why only once a month?) - this time around, a reading of Mavis Gallant's "When We Were Nearly Young."  You can find it at their site, maybe - as of this writing,  it's a dead link, to the Gallant piece, but maybe the weird basement guy in charge of podcast maintenance will notice by the time you read this post, and fix it.

"And then Etta punched me in the jaw, knocking one of my earbuds into my wineglass."

Trouble is brewing across America as Book Clubs turn into Fight Clubs.  Observe:

JANICE RASPEN, a librarian at an elementary school in Fredericksburg, Va., came clean with her book club a couple years ago. They were discussing “A Fine Balance,” a novel set in India in the 1970s by Rohinton Mistry and an Oprah’s Book Club pick, when she told the group — all fellow teachers — that rather than read the book, she had listened to an audio version.

“My statement was met with stunned silence,” said Ms. Raspen, 38.

Finally Catherine Altman, an art teacher, spoke up.

“I said that I felt like listening to a book was a copout,” Ms. Altman said. “I’m not like a hardcore book group person — a lot of times I don’t even finish the book. But my point was that she is a librarian and I thought it was pretty ridiculous. I’m a painter and it would be like me painting by numbers.”

...Is it acceptable, they debate within and among themselves, to listen to that month’s book rather than read it? Or is that cheating, like watching the movie instead of reading the book?

This article gets big points for using the word "enthusiast," as well as referring to "the hairy eyeball" - which should be in quotes (right?) but in the article is not, lending it even more oomph and a nice literal image.

I suppose it's an interesting little issue, though.  I listened to Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief  History of the Dead and Paul Auster's The Book of Illusions and have not cracked either book (though I do own the Auster) - and am on record somewhere in support of audiobooks.  If my choices are to listen to bland FM radio, histrionic AM radio, or an audiobook (which would mean that I've misplaced my music CDs, or they're all scratched; likely the latter) I'm going to go with the audiobook.  It's a 40 minute commute.  Sometimes it's nice to have nothing on.  Okay, maybe twice a year.

I always try to think of them not as a substitute for reading, but as an alternative.  You wouldn't go to a reading and say later that you'd spent the evening reading that short story, would you?  So, I suppose I haven't read either of those books.  I've listened to the audiobooks.  Nothing wrong with that, right?  Maybe not so good for a book club, though.  Book, after all.  Not audiobook.  Go join an audiobook club.  Can't say as I have a lot of sympathy for this woman, either:

Zella Ondrey, who lives in Hazleton, Pa., is open about her listening experiences. Ms. Ondrey, 44, who moderates a book group at a Barnes & Noble, listens while traveling for her job as a vice president at the Haworth Press, a publisher of academic and professional-development books (none of which are available in an audio format).

She recently listened to an abridgement — the only audio version available — of “Ahab’s Wife: Or, the Star-Gazer” and admitted as much to her group.

The book, like “Moby-Dick,” to which it alludes, is heavy on description. “Apparently some of the detail it went through — like 15 pages describing a lighthouse — was rather boring,” said Ms. Ondrey, adding that while others in the group were not riveted they seemed to consider themselves more virtuous for having waded through it the old-fashioned way.

“I was frowned upon because I didn’t go through the same machinations,” she said.

Yeah, well, you're the moderator. 

Estrin podcast.

I note with some interest that Golem Song is available as a free podcast. 

Your audiobook as one track on an iPod.

Well, not your audiobook, unless you're into listening to someone read your own book to you.  Never mind.  We're still holiday hungover here at Condalmo. 

Okay, so what that will do is rip the CD as one long track (about an hour and 15 minutes long or so), instead of ripping the CD into individual tracks (which for audiobooks is not at all useful).  Also, this will make your iPod remember your playback position, so if you stop listening to the audiobook (to, say, listen to music), when you return to your audiobook, it'll remember where you left off.

Audiobook histrionics.

There's an article at the Guardian today pleading for restraint in audiobooks. Excerpt:

As audio books are spewed out incontinently on the internet, the choice of reader seems entirely random. I heard a book on the CIA read by someone who was either computer-generated or doing a creepy impression of Stephen Hawking. A brilliant account of the antic Charlie Wilson's War was wrought low by hectoring bogus gravitas. A reading of the Kennedy White House was fatally torpedoed by hilarious mispronunciation of everything from people's names to historical terms; after anally listing the 50th horror, I gave up in dismay.

I''ve had mostly good experiences with audiobook narrators, but I recently bought The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle on audiobook and was excited to immerse myself in the story again, but good lord the narration.  Like a bad stage production.  I haven't made it past the first hour yet, putting it aside to catch up on old episodes of Bookworm and This American Life.  It's a letdown when the narrator reads incredulity into dialogue that just doesn't really call for it, not in the context of the conversation.  I'm not prepared to give the production a thumbs-down overall, but it isn't off to a good start.

Thirty percent off. Always thirty percent.

This week only, Audible.com is 30% off everything.  Might be time to get that 26 hour opus you've (ok, I've) been looking at.

"The Brief History of the Dead" - Kevin Brockmeier - review.

Finished listening to Kevin Brockmeier's fine The Brief History of the Dead.  I'd like to take two views of this book - the first, a general review of the story itself, and second, a look at how it works as an audiobook.  A lot of purists turn their noses up at the audiobook - but, more on that later.

Part I

Looking at BHD as a book, it excels in so many ways.  I'm not able to comb through the audio for passages to quote here (for reasons previously explained), but for a look at this great writing, click here.  It's the first chapter, and it's a hook.  The general premise behind the story is outlined at the beginning:  when we die, we go into a purgatory of sorts, in this case a fully functioning giant city.  We continue here, at the same age we were when we died.  Being in this city is dependent on continuing to be in someone's memories in "the real world" - so, once everyone that knew you, remembered you in some way - once they are all dead, you vanish from this city, ostensibly gone to your final reward.  It's a simple enough theory, but Brockmeier takes it and spins gold.  For those allergic to purely literary looks at such weighty issues, there's a nice bit of suspense plot thrown in there - Laura Byrd, a researcher at the bottom of the world, learns that a virus (whether it is man made or natural is never completely clear, but he lets just enough possibility of terrorism slip in to make things feel very current) has exterminated millions upon millions of people.  Is she the last person on Earth?  If not, can she reach anyone else, someone who has found an antidote?  What happens to the city as millions of people "here" die? 

In a sense, this book nicely jumps between fiction, fantasy, science fiction, and literary fiction so often that you soon lose track of the differences in your head, and it becomes a story about memory, about death and the different types of death, about the differences between the spirit and the soul and the body.  It's intelligent without being stultifying; Brockmeier knows where the line is between a good story and windy philosophy, and his dances around that line show the work of a writer that isn't afraid to dig at the truth. 

Part II

Yes, it works as an audiobook.  The reader is Richard Poe, and he differentiates well between the different voices without being corny.  It actually helps, in a way, to have these different voices all sounding very similar (being spoken as they are by Mr. Poe) - fits in with the narrative.  It is easy to pick up the thread, if you listen in fits and starts - commuting, waiting rooms, bathrooms.  (I have no shame.) 

I had intended to get into the plusses/minuses of audiobooks, but this post is overdue as it is, so I'll save that for another time.

Do I like the train?

I started responding in the comments to this comment, but got on other topics, so decided to move it front and center:

Me like! 

All of his writing seems aimed in that one direction.  Everything in the past does seem more simple, more direct, and the present is rife with the "whole slew of convoluted extras."  That whole loss of self - whether through time, through too much introspection - is all over the place in his writing, and I dig it. 

The fickle gods of inter/intralibrary loaning seem to be sending me Murakami's A Wild Sheep Chase as my next audiobook selection (about 13 minutes left on the Brockmeier, and I simply cannot sneak off to the bathroom again until at least 3pm), which should be a nice ride.  I had been looking at the audiobook as a nice way to reread books, but this will be the third book I listen to before actually reading it (the other two being the Brockmeier and Auster's "The Book of Illusions," which was the first and broke things open because it was read by Auster himself).  I've been up front about wanting to get my hands on the day-long audiobook of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, but those fickle gods.  I'd also love to hear this - the audio version isn't listed here, but as it's read by Scarlett Johansson, and I could listen to just the audio of Lost in Translation and consider it two hours well spent, how bad can the book be?

Brockmeier, "Brief History of the Dead" excerpt.

So far, pretty great stuff.  Sandy is working like gangbusters and I am hooked already by Brockmeier's writing.  For an excerpt - right from the beginning of the book - click here.

Stephen Dixon's "I." books; I caved; Brockmeier commutes

I am about halfway through Stephen Dixon's End of I. after having read his I.  (Good luck clicking on that link!  you drunkard!  nice tremors!)  I had planned to post about it as I went along, but I'm finding my reactions to it difficult to put into words.  It's positive - I already went on Powells, thinking I'd buy another of his books to read sometime (already owning Phone Rings), and discovering the rock-bottom prices, bought four of his older works.  Sometimes, reading a lot about an author's work before actually reading it yourself is a bad idea - most of what I'd like to write about his style has been noted ad nauseum elsewhere.  So, I'm hoping to finish it and come up with a fresh take. 

Meanwhile, my well-documented (elsewhere, and never mind the address) back-and-forth about whether or not to buy an mp3 player has come to an end.  Bought a SanDisk m250.  As iPods don't play the audiobooks that I can download for free from the library, they were immediately ruled out.  I don't care for proprietary shell games.  Apple can kiss my ass.

First up on the Sandy: Kevin Brockmeier's The Brief History of the Dead.  Also copied the first half of Paul Auster's I Thought My Father was God.  Let's see if I can finish the Brockmeier in the allotted three weeks.