Patricia O'Connor

Woe Is I

(Riverhead)

 Amazon

As a professional writer and English major, I had always wanted to believe that Woe Is I was a book miles below my reading level. I am not, after all, a grammarphobe. I like words. I always answer “I’m well,” instead of “I’m good.” I know the difference between you’re and your. And best of all, I almost always have a professional editor on call to catch whatever mistakes I might make. But when I learned that Patricia O’Connor had produced a third edition of the famous book, I got an intuitive feeling that it was time for me to finally read it. In my heart of hearts, I know my grammar isn’t perfect. Furthermore, editors don’t always catch mistakes. I recalled a piece I’d written in which my editor and I both missed my wildly incorrect usage of the word, “incidences” instead of “incidents.” Although it had slipped by us, it was caught by a reader who was angry enough to find my personal blog and write a comment calling me a “dunce.’

If I had read O’Connor’s book before that day, I would have known better. I also would have been able to make a case for the modern meaning of decimate (it no longer means killing off ten percent, but it definitely doesn’t mean “wipe out completely”). I would have been able to inform my editor that it is permissible to have “myriad” or “a myriad” questions about grammar. I would have spent less time agonizing about hyphens and never would have complained that was I was “chomping at the bit.” (Apparently it’s “champing at the bit.”)

In truth, the book is as suitable for lovers of language as it is for those who fear commas. O’Connor inadvertently teaches a great deal about how to write elegant, economical, and clear sentences. Reading the book felt like sharpening a knife; I thought I knew how to write, when in fact my brain was a bit dull in many areas. It occured to me that this book is even more important for writers than it is for average people. Underneath O’Connor’s cutesy, down-to-earth explanations, clarifications, and references to movies is a tribute to the art of the the English language. Much of what O’Connor knows is so specific that we could get away without doing it correctly, but the real revelation is how truly effective language can be when we stick to the rules. (Or break them. O’Connor also tells when we should ignore convention in favor of coherency.)

Her book is testament to the living, breathing nature of language. Not only does she relay important information about how words should be used, she reports on how language is used. It is an important reference for any writer to at least have on file, if not to read from cover-to-cover. It is the sort of book that can be read one chapter at a time for inspiration and insight. But for those who are seeking a comprehensive grammar education, the book is easily digestible and littered with pop culture examples that will appeal to real grammarphobes. Apparently, Paris Hilton is as ubiquitous as pronoun misuse.

—Rachel Balik

It is certainly no secret that I am a frequent correspondent with and major journalistic supporter of veteran screenwriter and novelist Rudy Wurlitzer, as any close reader of my Deconstruction Zone column for PopMatters will note.

My friendship with Rudy grew out of a months-long e-mail correspondence that began in late 2008 as an informal interview; that correspondence (as well as subsequent telephone conversations) formed the basis of my 6 February 2009 column, “Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer: ‘A Beaten-Up Old Scribbler’”.

In a 30 July 2009 column, “Rudy Wurlitzer, Bob Dylan, Bloody Sam, and the Jornado del Muerto”, I explored Wurlitzer’s debut novel, Nog (1969, re-released this year by Two Dollar Radio), and wound up creating a meditative essay on Sam Peckinpah, the death of the American frontier, Bob Dylan, and the stormy production of Peckinpah’s 1973 masterpiece Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (from a screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer). It’s easy to veer off in different directions from the path originally intended when writing about Wurlitzer and his remarkable body of work because his themes and preoccupations invite a sort of Beckett-esque circular exploration.

Wurlitzer, in my opinion, is one of the finest American writers produced by the tempestuous and troubling counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s, certainly ranking up there with his celebrated colleagues Joan Didion and Robert Stone. I intend to write about Wurlitzer again in my December column because, frankly, my exploration of the somewhat reclusive author and his literary canon is not yet complete.

With that much said, imagine my surprise this morning when I awoke to find e-mails from two colleagues pointing me to an article in the online edition of the Los Angeles Times written by Sam Adams and titled The Resurgence of Rudy Wurlitzer. From the LAT article:

These days, however, there’s something of a Wurlitzer resurgence in the works. His films have found new life on DVD, and the independent press Two Dollar Radio has begun to bring his writing back. In 2008, the publisher released “The Drop Edge of Yonder,” his first new novel in nearly a quarter of a century; earlier this year, it reissued “Nog.” Now come “Flats” and “Quake,” collected together in one double-sided volume (244 pp., $17 paper). For the first time in more than three decades, it’s possible to investigate the interplay between Wurlitzer’s novels and his screenplays, the way his radical experiments in one informed his canny deconstruction of the other.

Now, compare and contrast the above with my own text from Conversing with Rudy Wurlitzer, written for The Deconstruction Zone at PopMatters a full nine months earlier:

Indeed, there is something of a Rudy Wurlitzer renaissance going down in the pop culture zeitgeist; not only through the Criterion releases but also through a well-deserved re-examination of Wurlitzer’s long-forgotten work as a masterful novelist, with independent publisher Two Dollar Radio preparing to re-release the out-of-print novels Nog (1969) and Quake (1974) in late 2009. Two Dollar also plans to release Wurlitzer’s Flats (1971) and Quake in a single “69 turnover” edition (two books in one binding) which pleases Wurlitzer immensely because both novels, the author says, “seem related as they were written back-to-back expressing a sort of post-apocalyptic vision that I was consumed with in those days.”

You gotta love Adams’ canny use of the noun ‘deconstruction’ in his last sentence. A subconscious slip? The hell if I know, but I did take great comfort in what a colleague wrote to me after analyzing both articles:

“One thing I learned in marketing: if you are the person who brings ideas to the table, it doesn’t matter what falls off; the table is always yours, and the thieves need you. Keep plowing the high ground.”

—Rodger Jacobs

Gregory Maguire

Matchless, A Christmas Story

(William Morrow; US: Oct 2009)

 Amazon

One of the great times in my life was the ten years during which I read to my daughter Julia every night before her bedtime. (My wife enjoyed the same with our daughter Alice.) Along with many other picture books, fairy tales, poetry collections, even The Hobbit and the first Harry Potter book (one was enough for me), we made our way through all the Frank L. Baum Oz books. Wildly uneven, each Oz tale had its own treasures, and we didn’t think even one of them a total dud.

Gregory Maguire, of course, is the new standard bearer for the Oz kingdom, with his ongoing series of “Wicked” novels. (Here’s my PopMatters review of the latest in the series: A Lion Among Men.) 

Maquire has made a career retelling, or, more accurately, re-imagining great stories, such as his novel-length versions of Snow White and Cinderella. He can also concoct his own strange brews, as he did with the scintillating Lost.

Now he’s written Matchless, A Christmas Story, a brief “reillumination”, as he calls it, of “The Little Match Girl” by Hans Christian Andersen. The bleak story of the poor little Match Girl who imagines she sees her dead grandmother as she freezes to death is left largely intact (though it’s her mother she sees here), but is framed by the story of Frederick, a poor little boy who also comes close to dying from the elements, but is saved by the Match Girl’s guiding spirit. He goes on to live a somewhat improved existence when his mother marries the Little Match Girl’s father and their fortunes improve.

Matchless is a clever rescue of the Andersen story, bookending its sadness with a more hopeful tale, and, by changing the time frame from New Year’s Eve to Christmas Eve, making it much more appropriate for young children.

With many somewhat clumsy but effective illustrations by the author himself (Maguire’s usual illustrator, Douglas Smith, being perhaps too dark for the purpose), Matchless was written to be read aloud and is the perfect length for a single bedtime reading.

I’ll keep my copy and look forward to reading it to Julia’s children someday.

—Christopher Guerin

Andrew Davidson

The Gargoyle

(Doubleday)

 Amazon

The Gargoyle is a brutal story about a man terribly disfigured in a car crash, burned to an almost unrecognizable crisp following an alcohol and cocaine binge. Incongruously, it’s also about timeless love.

The nameless narrator may have been burned beyond recognition, but Maryanne Engel knows him. They’ve never met before, at least that he can remember, but she finds him in his recovery room and helps nurse him back to health through endless skin grafting, morphine doses, and physical therapy.

Maryanne is many things—an artist, a sculptor, a storyteller, a fantastic cook, and a tattooed schizophrenic. As Maryanne helps the narrator overcome his inclinations toward suicide and substance abuse, she gradually fills him in on their past romances. Davidson’s story mixes violence in the present with destruction in the past, conveying the intense connection that Maryanne feels about the man she perceives as her soulmate.

At times jarring, at times hopeless, at times saturated with a sense of inevitability, Maryanne’s stories are captivating and the narrator finds himself thoroughly dependent on her. Until, inevitably, the tables are turned and the narrator finds he must take care of Maryanne, trying everything he can think of to pull her out of her own spiral toward self-destruction. Davidson’s debut novel is a riveting page-turner. I’m hoping he’s hard at work on something equally fascinating.

—Lara Killian

Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein

Girldrive: Criss-crossing America, Redefining Feminism

(Seal Press)

 Amazon

Authors Nona Willis Aronowitz and Emma Bee Bernstein document and reveal American women across the continent in Girldrive: Criss-crossing America, Redefining Feminism, while traveling the literal and metaphorical road. With a manifest certainty, these life-long friends hit the road in search of “what do other 20-something women care about? Have they heard of this nebulous idea of ‘feminism’ and do they relate to it?” As recent college grads, Nona and Emma decide to take this trip to hear women’s different stories about feminism in America, using their talents as writers and photographers.

There is a trio of plots being told in this unassuming book. The cover and size of the book is similar to that of a photo album, but it’s filled with more than just pictures and memories. The book starts with an ominous dedication, “For two kick-ass feminists who left this world too early”: Emma Bee Bernstein, one of the authors of Girldrive, and Ellen Willis, Nona’s mother.  This information lends a bittersweet poignancy to certain transitional passages.

As Nona and Emma travel the United States, they can’t help but feel “entrenched in a cinematic and literary idea of road tripping.” This nostalgic theme runs through the book, making it at times read like a travelogue, in the cleverest way. Like any well told road trip, this tale stirs wanderlust in the reader. They actually travel from sea to shining sea.

However, above all, this is a book about feminism. As Nona and Emma travel through the States, they interview young women about perspectives on being a woman in modern America. While the authors are strident feminists and embrace the word and it’s history, many of their subjects don’t subscribe to the term, ignore it, or protest against it. Yet, all of these women have very strong opinions about being empowered females.

The tales of these women accompanied by stirring photographs offers a decidedly female perspective in Girldrive. Nona and Emma manage to exhibit the feminine perspective on the American countryside, as well as social and racial issues, with a sense of humor.

—Katharine Wray

Last week, Randall Stross wrote an article in the New York Times called “Will Books Be Napsterized?”. Stross reports as more readers opt for e-books over print or audio versions, the usual slew of piracy web sites that traffics in free music downloads is making it possible to download e-books for free. In other words: more grim news for the already beaten-down publishing industry. Book sales have been plummeting for the past two years anyway; the article reports a 13% decrease in 2008 and a 15.5% decrease in July 2009. Of course sales were down in every industry in 2009, but everyone knows that the book industry has troubles of its own.

The business model has never been particularly cost effective, with publishers footing the bill for printing, shipping copies off to booksellers and hoping for the best. E-books are certainly a more viable model in terms of overhead costs, but if the piracy of e-books takes off, the publishing industry is in big trouble. And of course, that’s not really an “if”. The piracy of e-books will take off, and it’s inevitable that books are headed down the path of CDS: towards the graveyard.

—Rachel Balik