Nancy Rommelmann

To Hold or To Have? Or, Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" - Part IV

Nearly a month after ordering the new albeit cheapo Kindle, it is set to arrive today.

Which also happens to be the day "Freedom" arrives in bookstores.

I have been to Powell's twice to buy it, once when I mistakenly thought it was already out, a second time on the chance that it had been released, I don't know, early.

So what do I do? Download or buy a hard copy? I realize both are books, but... but...

I am experiencing anxiety at the idea of not having a physical copy of "Freedom." Is this to be merely surmounted? I am leaning toward buying hard copies of the books I feel I need to physically possess (plus those picked up at garage sales, and on a whim, and and and) and downloading those I just want. A caste system of sorts for books, with some moving in, and others occupying only virtual space.

What about you? Are you experiencing any angst at the changeover? And if, as many of you undoubtedly are, ahead of me on this curve, what have you learned?

How to Become a Scandal

The first of three pieces I will have in the O this week, a review of Laura Kipnis's How to Become a Scandal. A clip:

"The pleasure of knocking the excessively privileged and overly lucky down a notch or two can hardly be underestimated," [Kipnis] writes. "Scandalizers screw things up in showy, provocative ways and the rest of us throw stones, luxuriating in the warm glow of imaginary imperviousness that other people's life-destroying stupidities invariably provide." (For more on that, I give you "The Real Housewives" and "Jersey Shore.")

Kipnis, a cultural critic whose previous books have examined sexual politics and pornography, lays out the lavish details of each story. She includes Sol Wachtler, a former chief justice of the New York State of Appeals who committed adultery, extortion, blackmail and interstate racketeering but thought he might get away with it all by faking an inoperable brain tumor.

Tumors, diapers, Bill Clinton's cigar, Monica's thong: All, in Kipnis' words, "so cringe-making," and yet they linger in our collective memory, like embarrassing smells we nevertheless like to sniff, and perhaps need to, to remind ourselves, don't be that guy!

Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom," Part III

I am richer today; these events come around rarely. The review, and a clip:

Like all great novels, “Freedom” does not just tell an engrossing story. It illuminates, through the steady radiance of its author’s profound moral intelligence, the world we thought we knew.

Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom" Redux [updated]

Need a laugh? Check out a post by Jeff Baker [full disclosure: one of my editors] over on the Oregonian's book blog, regarding popular authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner whinging about how Franzen received a glowing review from the NYT's Michiko Kakutani for his latest novel because... wait for it... he's a white male.

Gee, how generous of them! Never mind that he's been working on it for ten years. And that his last book, "The Corrections", won the National Book Award. And that, in this author's opinion, he is turning out some of the most finely worked and valuable prose we've seen in a long time.

Which, apparently, is a problem for Picoult, though not for the reason you'd think:

Picoult also criticised Kakutani's use of the word "lapidary". "Did you know what [it] meant when you read it in Kakutani's review? I think reviewers just like to look smart," she tweeted.

Over at Huff Post, Jennifer Vanderbes offers some graceful expansion. (Thanks, Jeff).

What My Daughter Found in Her Salad Today

Brooklyn Bagels apologized and is giving Tafv's office... a credit for more food. Gee.

But seriously, the kid could have choked to death. The worry, the worry, it never ends...
 

TV's Most Interesting Character

Mad Men's Sally Draper. Perhaps because, for some of us, it's all so achingly familiar.

Can't Wait - Jonathan Franzen's "Freedom"

David Ulin review, here. The NY Times ran a review earlier in the week, and while I often get books at the library, and am currently making a list of those I will download onto my new Kindle whenever the heck Amazon can get it together to send it (I ordered it August 3; apparently, Amazon didn't have any ready to ship, but didn't think it was important to let me know that, but anyway...), I did make a trip today to Powell's to buy Freedom. Turns out, it's not out until August 31. I just wrote a review for How to Become a Scandal, and my editor let me know he was going to hold it, until the 29th issue of the paper, so as not to, you know, get readers psyched to buy it and then have it unavailable. I realize Franzen is a big, big name (I loved The Corrections, the only book where I have had the sensation, while reading, of running alongside the story, physically running), and that the window to capitalize on book releases grows smaller and smaller. But still, I was disappointed to have made the trip and not found it. I wanted to read it all day in our newly slated-over backyard (bye bye, grass!).

Today is one of those rare days where I do not need to be reading for work; where I can read just for pleasure, which of course make the work better. I have hundreds of books here on my book shelves... I can to choose... and I have just chosen Charles McCarry's Old Boys. I've read two of McCarry's books, the brilliant The Miernik Dossier, and The Last Supper, which I liked but did not love. I find this to be my reaction to the work of most espionage authors: some books strike as utterly original, others hew too close to the formula. Another favorite: Alan Furst's Kingdom of Shadows, whose protagonist, Nicholas Morath, quite got under my skin; I do think, in the worlds we build and keep in our minds, I have made a roomfor myself and Morath, in Paris 1939. I am, you see, Mary Day. 

Let me know your favorite espionage books, and why. 

The N Word as "Speed Bump"

Hear hear for rationality in 2010: the best assessement of Dr. Laura's use of the N word that I've heard, from John Ridley. Two points I particularly like: I can make fun of my sister, but you can't, and the spot-on assertion that Dr. Laura (who I sometimes get a kick out of listening to on long car drives; her common-sense-by-cudgel delivery system never fails to fascinate/repel) is now painting herself as a victim, the role she constantly berates her listeners for playing. Bonus points to Ridley for pointing out her reductive thinking, of which she is clearly unaware, or perhaps simply proud of.

"And it Made a Lovely Light": Christopher Hitchens

Indeed xx

Ristretto Girls Float Trip Down the Clackamas River

Pretty nice. Never have seen water sparkle like that. Looked like a sea of boiling mercury.

One Reason to Love the Northwest

Heard just now on the local radio about a wildfire in Sisters, Oregon, and how authorities there are dealing with those residents who choose not to evacuate. To paraphrase the officer:

"I'm not going to stand here arguing with you. But if you're going to stay, I need your name, your date of birth, and the name of your dentist."