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Books read in 2012, Part III

Before 2013 marches on any further, the stirring conclusion to my book list… In 2012, I read 27 books. Here are numbers 1-10 in the order of most to least inspiration, pleasure, ideas and word-love derived.

(1) and 2)

I worked my way through Volumes 1-6 of the Diary of Anais Nin this year, which I found to be lyrical, compelling, idea-inspiring. 

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 2, 1934-1939 (1967)

Volume 2 was my favourite. Expansiveness as a writer, thoughts on the woman artist. Begins in jazzy New York City, taking on Otto Rank’s patients as an apprentice analyst. Then her return to Paris, her “romantic life” in the houseboat, friendship with Durrell & Henry Miller and the mooching Gonzalo. Reality intruding via the Spanish Civil War and the first stirrings of WWII. Favorite quote from Volume 2 here.

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 1, 1931-1934 (1966)

The beginning of it all: Louveciennes, meeting Henry Miller, café life, reconciliation with her father, initiates psychoanalysis, miscarriage… A choice quote here.

(3) Fun Home (2006) – Alison Bechdel

A book that couldn’t exist in any form but the graphic novel. The interplay between image and text is layered, each panel precise and necessary. I was amazed at how she was able to transmit the confusion and complexity of being a child and adolescent: how the historical time, family history and your personal development (body & mind) all mixes together, while figuring out questions of sexuality, gender and selfhood. The specificity of a time and the great looming role your parents play in it. Literature weaving through it as it did through her relationship with her father. Absorbing, moving, funny.

(4) This Is How You Lose Her (2012) – Junot Díaz

I found this collection to be a bit uneven compared with Drown. The very last story, for example, just sounds like Díaz sitting down & telling you about how he fucked up his love life over a couple of beers, which is entertaining enough, but lacks his magic touch. This book is near the top of my list because of the story “Invierno”, which was so gripping, vivid, & true. It got inside me unlike any other short story I’ve read recently.


(5) The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (1975)

Andy Warhol on beauty, art, sex, aging, celebrity. Very funny, very charming. More thoughts here. Favorite Andy quotes here.


(6) Cathedral (1983) – Raymond Carver 

This was a re-read for me “Cathedral” and “Feathers” are two of my Carver stories. More complete thoughts here.

(7) and (8)

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 3, 1939-1944 (1969)

The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Volume 4, 1944-1947 (1971)

These volumes cover her displacement from Paris during World War II; frustration at the United States, its attitudes towards literature and selfhood. Quote from Volume 4 here. Volume 3 quote here.


(9) Art and Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards of) Artmaking (1993) – David Bayles and Ted Orland

Primarily addressed to visual artists, but for anyone trying to keep up their creative life. Draws attention to process as the primary purpose & function of art-making, in a timeless way. A brilliantly concise history of the various cultural definitions of art & the conundrum artists face today. (Art being defined as a vehicle of individual expression and art about art being the highest intellectual ideal…. Much in the way that writing about writing will get you the most points in academic circles.) 

(10) Will You Please Be Quiet Please? (1976) – Raymond Carver 

Carver’s very first book of short stories. Comforting to see that a couple of them are duds (“Bicycles, Muscles, Cigarettes”), but of course the majority are knock-outs. I especially love “What’s in Alaska?”, “Fat” and “Jerry and Molly and Sam”. 

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Thoughts on Raymond Carver’s Cathedral

While reading fiction, I mark passages that strike me in a writerly way, but this didn’t happen while I was reading the collection Cathedral. I do think Carver’s a brilliant writer, but his genius is in pacing, dialogue. I admire his use of profanity. He has a way of inserting “Goddamn” that’s so funny. 

People talk about Carver in terms of realism, telling working people’s stories in a realistic way, but I always thought his world is stranger, more dislocated  than that. Take the story “Feathers” about a couple going to another couple’s house for dinner – there are the grotesque teeth sitting on the TV, there’s a peacock named Joey, there’s a hideously ugly baby. Oh, there’s a good line: “Even calling it ugly does it credit.” Or “Fever”, a story of a man whose wife has left him, left him alone with their two young kids. He makes her sound a little crazy when she calls on the phone, yes, but she is also genuinely psychic in a way. The bereft husband never questions how she knows what she knows –  this is a conscious move on Carver’s part, it makes it eerie, almost, or more about the man’s psyche than what’s happening in reality.

Stories about marriages ending. A recurrent theme of children spoiling relationships (“Feathers”, “The Compartment”). The grip of alcoholism: in “Vitamins” it’s still kind of a lark, turning dark; “Where I’m Calling From” & “Chef’s House”, fully in the dark side. The couple seems to be the central figure, the couple relationship is at the heart of all of the stories, in a way.

Hard to pick a favourite, I guess “Cathedral” is the obvious choice, it may be Carver’s single best story – so funny, effortless, effervescent. The way he establishes the relationship between the couple – the husband (narrator) is doing his best, “on notice”. He loves his wife, he often disappoints her. She really wants her blind friend to like him, is hoping her husband doesn’t do anything embarrassing. The narrator places you on his side from the beginning, & it feels comfortable there (“A beard on a blind man! Too much I say.”) The use of exclamation marks. It suddenly goes to a metaphysical place, but from this wise guy’s perspective. How do you describe a cathedral to a blind man? It leads to a connection he didn’t think himself capable of.

Full ranking in order of preference:

“Cathedral”
“Feathers”
“Vitamins” (Hard to forget this story.)
“Where I’m Calling From”
“Fever”
“The Bridle” (How life kicks people when you’re down sometimes. The only story with a female narrator, interesting how she feels bound to the woman she’s describing.)
“The Compartment”
“Chef’s House”
“A Small, Good Thing”
“Preservation”
“Careful”
“The Train” (more like a sketch, a beginning of a story than a story proper)