missed it the first time: Italo Calvino’s If on a winter’s night a traveler

An occasional series to review books that are several years old and Deckfight has never read before

To describe Italo Calvino’s classic If on a winter’s night a traveler as difficult is the same as saying that dog barks or babies cry. It’s that obvious and sometimes the difficulty of it is that annoying. To approach the book without that mindset will cause all to fail. It demands patience, it demands long attention. In some ways it may be the best literary theory book ever written (not the ‘theory’ word), because of his knack for illustrating tough concepts into imaginable situations. That he does all of this with the second-person (choose-your-own-adventure style) is both confounding and genius. He challenges the notion of reading, the concept of books, and the idea of authors and readers at every turn while somehow also concluding it.
The conceit is that Calvino writes ten different beginnings to story, each with a portion of a title that then makes a longer sentence. The plot is that a character named “you,” indicated as the reader is on a quest to find and connect these stories together, each time running into a new story and more difficulty. Along the way, you meet several different readers and people who each approach books and the concept of books differently. There is the person who derives meaning from books by the frequency of how many times a certain word is used. There is the sculptor who uses books as his material. There are the scholars who argue constantly over proper translations. Like the best soapbox prophet, he is still somewhat of a pariah. Unfortunately all of his ideas presented here still seem new and fresh even though it’s thirty years old. The literary world still hasn’t caught up with him. Calvino manipulates, warns and challenges us without few ever fully engaging him. He is either one of the best ever or the craziest ever. Or both.

young lit agents have an opinion

From Poets and Writers: I’m not sure how “young” these people actually are, but a couple of good ideas come out including when to send your manuscript and what to put in the cover letter. Usually, agents aren’t this forthcoming and there are some specifics about working w/ an editor etc.

The best: From Julie Barer–”I think everybody’s looking for a book that you can’t put down, that you lose yourself in so completely that you forget everything else that’s going on in your life and you just want to stay up and you don’t care if you’re going to be tired in the morning. You just want to keep reading.“

the new west? deadbeats and authors

I guess I’m pretty easy to characterize as this article from the New York Observer interviews a couple of my most recent reading choices–including Ferris of Then We Came To The End and Bock of Beautiful Children. Maybe male authors are attracted to these characters, because that’s all we know. Books on high society aren’t interesting anymore and interesting stuff about the legal system or government has been given over to too much genre. In a lot of ways, what the article describes is a version of the modern western: bad guys still trying to find their place in the world. I’m kind of surprised Ferris was included–his “anti-hero” is more humorous and is not necessarily the central character.
The best: Mr. Howard said he does not get irritated when he sees young authors compared to Mr. Palahniuk, and thinks it’s natural that young writers would be attracted to drawing these kinds of characters. “There is so much pressure, I think, for young people to be adjusted and to get with the program these days that the fact that somebody like Chuck is out there saying ‘uh-uh’ is being taken as liberating,” he explained. “And obviously, if that sort of feeling is in the air, a lot of other talented young writers are going to channel it themselves.” (h/t Largehearted).

Sonic Youth, Inspired by…

Not sure if it’s actually cool to like Sonic Youth, or to like them in a ironic way–like how an indie hipster likes Justin Timberlake. SY has been around for awhile now, with so many claims of influence, I don’t see how they can keep living up to themselves. Thurston and Kim probably put on masks in the morning before looking at the mirror.
Now here’s some fiction inspired by the book, (from Village Voice) compared to actual experiences inspired by the song titles, like someone named Eric taking a trip, or someone else trying to find out the meaning of “Kissability.” Buy it from Powell’s.

artist picks on lit mob

It’s so nice when indie rock and lit can come together. there’s peace on the artistic earth. since those are two concerns of deckfight (maybe the only two), it’s a pretty good read on Lit Mob of what the band literati are up to, including Dan Deacon, Ra Ra Riot, Earlimart, among others. Ben Weaver is probably most similar to my interests, though I haven’t read all the books they suggested (a lot of Vonnegut all around though). Definitely want to read Hotel Theory by Wayne Koestenbaum.
Bonus: Here’s an interview from PaperMag with Lit Mob founder, Doug Perkl.

interv. w/ john brandon

Interview with John Brandon, author of Arkansas, a book from McSweeney’s that I’m sure is the best book from ‘08 that I have not read. It is probably the best book I’ve heard of in the past three days. (From identity theory).