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David Foster Wallace, 1962-2008
Novelist and essayist David Foster Wallace was found dead Friday. He was the author of several works of nonfiction, three short story collections, and two novels, including, most notably, his acclaimed masterwork, Infinite Jest. Infinite Jest earned a place on Time magazine’s list of 100 Best English-Language Novels.
Wallace was a unique, whimsical, though extremely thoughtful and intelligent writer with a refreshing sense of humor and style. With Infinite Jest, he established himself as a powerful, dynamic young voice in contemporary literature.
In recent years, Wallace was a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
His death was an apparent suicide by hanging. Wallace’s father commented that his son had suffered from depression for over twenty years, and it had become progressively worse over the last few months.
Fare you well, Mr. Wallace. Your voice will be missed.
If you’re not familiar with DFW’s work, check out his commencement speech at Kenyon College in 2005 to get a good idea of his incandescent wit and wisdom.
Story & Image Source Wikipedia
Book Review: A New Path to the Waterfall by Raymond Carver
Raymond Carver is one of those writers who’s been on the periphery of my bookshelf for years. The few snippets of his work that I’d read struck me deeply, yet somehow I just never got around to picking up one of his books. It wasn’t until I reread Natalie Goldberg’s Long Quiet Highway, one of my favorites, that I finally decided to get my hands on a Carver book.
I chose A New Path to the Waterfall as my inaugural Carver read, as this was the book that so affected Goldberg in her wonderful memoir. It’s safe to say A New Path changed her life and inspired her to new, dizzying, brilliant heights of imagination. It’s also interesting to note that A New Path should be my first formal introduction to Raymond Carver, since it was his final book before dying of lung cancer in 1988 at age 50.
A New Path to the Waterfall is a collection of poems — Carver was a poet and short story writer — peppered with anecdotes and passages from the likes of Milosz, Lowell, and most prominently, Chekov (Carver’s hero). From the first poem (the lush, entrancing “Thermopylae”), I saw with startling clarity the reasons Goldberg was so altered by this book. It is, quite simply, extraordinary.
It should be mentioned here that I am extra finicky about poetry. If I’m a snark when it comes to books, then I am a beyotch when it comes to poetry. This is because I adore, absolutely adore, poetry. It is my favorite literary form, and I hold the poets I read to a very high standard. Since a poet must do nothing short of splitting my world wide open, it’s not easy to get a spot on my list. Mary Oliver is, I think, a modern day Thoreau. Erica Jong’s Becoming Light has long been a reliable best friend during some truly dark hours. Claudia Emerson’s work shakes me to the very core. Anne Sexton — dear, troubled, insanely talented Anne — writes so succesfully the story of my own life that I often have a hard time reading her poems. And now, to this list, I am proud to add the name of Raymond Carver.
Carver’s wife, the poet Tess Gallagher, arranged the poems in the order they appear in A New Path, and this order is, in and of itself, poetry. There is a natural progression in the work, most of which was written while Carver was dying, as he makes his way through the various stages of grief. In the end, he has arrived at a place of gentle acceptance, a resignation to the impending arrival of that good night.
A New Path to the Waterfall is also, in many ways, an autobiography in verse. It’s all here: life, love, death, marriage, divorce, family, children, writing, art — even fishing. Fast approaching the precipice, Carver fearlessly examines a life well-lived and well-loved.
In the edition I read, published in 1994, Gallagher wrote a tender introduction that provides a rare glimpse into Carver’s life and work. She illustrates beautifully how very central poetry was to her late husband’s life, providing, especially in his final days, an escape from the pain in the harbor of safety words can provide. But never in his life was Carver just “‘building a career’,” Gallagher writes. ”He was living a vocation.”
And we are all the better for it. Grade: A-
Book Title A New Path to the Waterfall
Author Raymond Carver (with an introduction by Tess Gallagher)
Publisher Atlantic Monthly Press
Year Published 1994
ISBN 0871133741
Snarkbytes Robert Altman’s 1993 film Short Cuts was based on several of Carver’s stories and poems. Altman switched Carver’s original settings (mostly in the Pacific Northwest) to modern-day Los Angeles. Trailer below.
Image Source The New Yorker
Ten Books Every Patriot Should Read
I think this topic is well-suited for Patriot’s Day and the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks. In the midst of money-hungry politics and ferocious elections, it’s easy to lose sight of the core values, ideas, and philosophies of what being an American is all about.
These ten books serve as a good reminder for all of us. They also show us that there is still a lot of work to be done.
1984 by George Orwell. Orwell’s classic 1949 novel is a cautionary tale presented in the form of a futuristic society controlled by a totalitarian regime. A suffocating dystopia, this frightening new world depicts what happens when absolute power corrupts absolutely. Though 1984 takes place in London, it is a universal story - and a brave, disturbing warning against giving the authorities too much authority. It is an empowering, explosive novel that is, sadly, as applicable today as when it was written. 1984, through its terrifying vision, shows us that knowledge is not only power. It’s patriotism.
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. People with a different skin color, a different culture, and a different religion encroach upon the homeland of another and systemically plan a series of violent attacks in the name of liberation. Sound familiar? In Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Dee Brown meticulously recounts the plight of Native Americans in the late nineteenth century, displaced from their land and slaughtered by the U.S. government. Another (unfortunately) timeless book that bears that most bitter of lessons: those who do not learn from history are bound to be repeat it. To be a true American patriot, it is vital to understand where the many roots of patriotism lie - both the good roots and the bad.
Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau. Thoreau, a quintessential American patriot, was outraged by the dehumanization of slavery and war, and set forth a list of masterful ideas called nonviolent resistance. These idea would go on to inspire the likes of Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. In his essay Civil Disobedience, Thoreau challenged his countrymen to peacefully rebel against a government that was trying to control the conscience of the people. He also resisted, by refusing to pay taxes and ending up in prison, the government’s attempts to make American citizens arbiters of injustice. ”That government is best which governs least,” he wrote, introducing the radical idea that Americans needn’t be sheep, but instead a people ruled by conscience -their own and not their politicians’. Now that’s patriotism.
Common Sense by Thomas Paine. ”O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe…. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind.” These words, by British-born American revolutionary Thomas Paine, were written in 1776 as a common sense appeal to British authorities for colonial independence. Yet, in this age of war and terror, we can still find the inspiration and pride inherent in Paine’s words: a renegade call to action to stand up, be counted, and rail against the injustices imposed both at home and abroad. Paine reminds us that there is strength in numbers, and only when we realize this will the REAL revolution begin.
The End of America by Naomi Wolf. Subtitled “A Letter of Warning to a Young Patriot”, Naomi Wolf’s brilliant 2007 treatise outlines the ten steps countries undertake when transforming into a dictatorship. The scholarship of this book is brilliant, intelligent, and upsetting. But what’s even more upsetting is that all ten steps have already been initiated by our current administration (and most of them covertly, away from the glare of public knowledge). Wolf shows us how we are sleepwalking our way along a rocky, downhill path, and only when we wake up will we truly be worthy of the title “patriot”. There’s great sense in the fact that if we refuse to let our constitutional freedoms be destroyed, it is then, and only then, that we will begin to understand the meanings of patriotism, liberty, and pride.
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman. The quintessential book of American poetry by the man who just might be the greatest American poet. Whitman’s 1855 collection of poems cloaks radical ideas of freedom in the guise of some of the most spellbinding poetry ever written. Written in a time when the chaste overseers of American morality were constantly looking over his shoulder, Whitman threw himself into the naked thrill of the senses and fearlessly crafted his beautiful, patriotic odes. But Whitman knew something far more profound than what it means to be an American, or even a patriot for that matter. He knew what it meant to be human, a citizen of the world, demanding justice from blind authorities. Making his claims in the form of verse, Whitman wrote of the hopes of an entire people, a nation, and, in many ways, the world entire. ”I am he who tauntingly compels men, women, nations, / Crying, Leap from your seats and contend for your lives!” (from On Blue Ontario’s Shore).
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn. Zinn’s 1980 book is the story of the America our high school history textbooks conveniently left out. Meticulously researched and wonderfully written, A People’s History charts the development of the nation through the eyes of the disenfranchised: blacks, women, American Indians, war resisters, and poor laborers. Reading this book, it is impossible not to grasp that the bravery of those history forgot are just as important as the courage of those she remembered. Perhaps even more so.
Profiles in Courage by John F. Kennedy. JFK’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize-winner is the chronicle of eight rogue senators throughout history who disregarded party lines and ignored the status quo by following their own ideas of freedom and patriotism. Faced with criticism and unpopularity from their colleagues and constituents, the men Kennedy celebrates had the courage and fortitude to bring justice and equality to those deprived of it. We can all take a lesson from the eight senators who put their careers, and perhaps even their lives, on the line for the good of the American people. This is patriotism at its fearless best.
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The landmark novel, long considered the best American novel ever written, is so much more than a coming-of-age tale or a courtroom drama. Lee’s only novel (another Pulitzer winner) is a story of social inequality, racism, classism, gender roles, rape, and the bravery of one man who dares to take these issues on - forever altering the American literary and political landscapes. Atticus Finch, defending a black man accused of raping a white woman, is a fictional hero we should all strive to be: heroic, sensible, whip-smart, and fully comprehending of the fact that just because a law is a law doesn’t make it just. Finch is imploring us to fight with the greatest weapon we possess: our hearts.
Walden by Henry David Thoreau. In his trademark collection of essays, Thoreau examines the time he spent living in the woods outside Concord, Massachusetts. Along the way, he carefully inspects the natural world, down to the tiniest points of detail, and uses these details to illustrate the workings of the government and the will of the people. Isolating himself from society in an effort to understand it, Thoreau’s education drawn from nature is intensely moving and terrifically simple. Simplicity and self-reliance, those are the two biggest lessons he walks away with. And what better lessons for a patriot than the ability to think for oneself, whittle oneself down to the barest of necessities, and wake up to life so that it may be lived more deliberately and purposefully? This deliberation, Thoreau came to understand, is at the heart of all those buzzwords that are popular even today: life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.
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WHAT IS A SNARK?
The Snark is a creature created by Lewis Carroll in his poem "The Hunting of the Snark". To give a proper description of Snarks, one must look no further than Carroll himself, who summed them up in one word: Unimaginable.
But this much we do know: some have feathers, some have whiskers. Snarks sleep a lot, yet they are an ambitious lot -- with very little sense of humor. They love bathing-machines and tend to bring them wherever they go; they are also handy for striking a light. Snarks live on a far-off island, a place filled with chasms and crags, and are constantly on the lookout for Snark-hunters. Their mortal enemies are hope, care, thimbles and forks.
The Book Snark's Pick for Best Book of 2008
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