As most of you know I have been the co-host of The Readers podcast for about 107 episodes so far. Recently Simon and I had the distinct pleasure of welcoming about 18 of our listeners to San Francisco for a weekend of hanging out and book-based banter. It was a little challenging organizing three days of activities in one city siting in another about 3,000 miles away. But, happily, everything worked out really well. It was so much fun getting to know so many wonderful bookish people.  The only real problem is that I took almost no pictures of the proceedings or the participants.

We ate, we went book shopping, we got a bespoke tour of the rare book collection at the San Francisco Public Library, and we recorded three episodes with a live audience. Those recording sessions was my favorite part of the weekend. It was so much fun expanding our regular chatter to include others.  One of the episodes we recorded was the discussion of Hot Milk by Deborah Levy which was our summer read along pick. If you haven’t read it yet you still have time before the episode goes live. I think you will enjoy the discussion.

Anyhoo, here is a glimpse of the weekend.

 

A comment recently on Twitter about War and Peace got me thinking about the longest book I have read this year. The stats page of Goodreads offers up a nifty tool that shows you the longest book you’ve read each year.  The results are kind of fun.

2018: So far this year the longest book I have read is The Philosopher’s Pupil by Iris MURDOCH at 560 pages, but I fully intend to read Anathem by Neal STEPHENSON which 937 pages.

2017: 69 read, longest was 866 pages – 4 3 2 1 by P. AUSTER
2016: 99 read, longest was 799 pages – Middlemarch by G. ELIOT
2015: 74 read, longest was 864 pages – The Prime Minister by A. TROLLOPE
2014: 60 read, longest was 850 pages – Can You Forgive Her? by A. TROLLOPE
2013: 109 read, longest was 1,474 pages – A Suitable Boy by V. SETH
2012: 62 read, longest was 536 pages – The Name of the Rose by U. ECO
2011: 88 read, longest was 1,276 pages – The Count of Monte Christo by A. DUMAS
2010: 62 read, longest was 1,358 pages – War and Peace by L. TOLSTOY
2009: 110 read, longest was 797 pages – The Portrait of a Lady by H. JAMES
2008: 58 read, longest was 880 pages – The Last Chronicle of Barset by A. TROLLOPE
2007: 69 read, longest was 738 pages – I am Charlotte Simmons by T. WOLFE
2006: 76 read, longest was 648 pages – The Three Clerks by A. TROLLOPE
2005: 57 read, longest was 659 pages – The Small House at Allington by A. TROLLOPE
2004: 51 read, longest was 629 pages – The Secret History by D. TARTT
2003: 39 read, longest was 850 pages – Can You Forgive Her? by A. TROLLOPE
2002: 31 read, longest was 859 pages – An American Tragedy by T. DREISER
2001: 34 read, longest was 495 pages – The Sea, the Sea by I. MURDOCH
2000: 33 read, longest was 654 pages – Sons and Lovers by D.H. LAWRENCE
1999: 27 read, longest was 704 pages – A Man in Full by T. WOLFE
1998: 25 read, longest was 897 pages – I Know This Much Is True by W. LAMB
1997: 31  read, longest was 960 pages – Anna Karenina by L. TOLSTOY
1996: 14 read, longest was 582 pages – Elmer Gantry by S. LEWIS
1995: 20 read, longest was 637 pages – A Prayer for Owen Meany by J. IRVING

One thing that is interesting about this list is that some big books like The Woman in White and The Three Musketeers didn’t make the cut because there were other bigger books those years.

I didn’t bother with the winners from 1993 and 1994 because they didn’t even go above 400 pages.

From the 1,000+ category I think I enjoyed The Count of Monte Christo the most.

The one I am least likely to read again (meaning, you couldn’t pay me to read it again): Sons and Lovers

The one I think I may have enjoyed the most: 4 3 2 1

If I wait until I have the energy to write a narrative I will never get around to posting these pictures. We did a quick four-day trip to Maine over Labor Day weekend that was just what the doctor ordered. The weather was perfect. The food was good. The books were plentiful. The water was blue, the trees were green, and the birds in the sky sang.

We stopped in Blue Hill, Maine just because we had some time before we needed to head to Bangor for our flight home and because it was a glorious late summer/early fall kind of day. We knew we were headed back to summery humidity in DC and were reveling in the sunshine and glorious breezes of Maine. We love Maine. Have I mentioned that?

We stopped in a couple of really fine galleries, and a few that weren’t so fine. We had clam strips at the Fish Net and followed it up with amazingly good ice cream at Black Dinah Chocolatiers. (The ice cream is actually made at Pugnuts Ice Cream Shop in nearby Surry.)

I noticed there was a bookshop in town which is usually all I need to know to want to take a peek. But I had travel day time-anxiety and wasn’t sure if I would take the time to check it out. But, it turned out that we had plenty of time so I decided to see what it was all about. I had no idea how good of a shop Blue Hill Books would turn out to be. Great variety and selection. No doubt they get tourist traffic, but they are open year round and exist in a county with only 55,000 residents. Every county should be so lucky.

I got a giant book on color theory, John got several garden writing books, I was impressed with how many Amblers they had on the shelf, if my luggage hadn’t been full I would have gotten more…

Each time I have been to Mt. Desert Island I have enjoyed having a fossick in Wikhegan Old Books in Northeast Harbor. But I usually don’t buy anything because the books are a little too rare/fine for my tastes. I like a good reading copy of something I plan on reading. So, I go in, enjoy looking around and walk out empty handed. But now, after having been there since 1976, the store is closing so its owners can retire. And everything is 50% off through the end of the season (which is mid-October), except for the stuff in the glass cases which is 30% off.

This time I did not leave empty handed. Well, that’s not true, we did leave empty handed but that was because we had our book haul shipped. John got some lovely old gardening books, I got books on books, books on England, a little two-volume Mrs Oliphant novel…

And after that we went down the street and had the best Whoopie Pies in Maine. The best Whoopie Pies in Maine used to be found at the Novelty attached to the Monhegan House on Monhegan Island. But that was back when Sue was baking them. What makes a good Whoopie Pie? Fluffy, not dry chocolate cake and, more importantly, fluffy white filling. Many places get this way wrong by using buttercream or even worse, cream cheese frosting. But that is gross and wrong. The cake and the filling were both perfect at Colonel’s Bakery in Northeast Harbor. My only regret is we only got four of them.

 

There might be nothing funnier than hearing your GPS say Big Chicken Barn.

I’ve been to the Big Chicken book barn in Ellsworth, Maine on at least two occasions but it was always with Lucy in tow which meant one of us (not me) had to stay outside with her. And that, of course, meant that my browsing time was limited. On our recent four-day trip to Maine we flew and Lucy stayed at home which meant I had all the time I needed to comb through the stock.  This was a good thing, but, the fact that we flew meant that I didn’t have a car trunk I could fill with books.

John said that I should set a number and just limit myself to that number. I told him that although I wasn’t going to go crazy buying lots of stuff, there are certain authors like Cecil Roberts who are really hard to find and that if I found them I would buy them and then…

When we were on North Haven Island over Labor Day weekend, we stopped into the Hopkins Wharf Gallery. Inside we met artist and gallery co-owner David Wilson whose work is featured prominently in the gallery’s well curated collection. If we had had a roll of red dots and unlimited funds we would be been popping stickers all over the place.

After falling into discussion about various pieces in the gallery and the pottery of Frances Palmer in particular, Wilson asked us if we wanted to see more of her work. Being big fans of Palmer, we said yes and were ushered next door into part of the living quarters that he shares with his husband David Hopkins who is also co-owner of the gallery. And that was when my jaw dropped. Thank goodness John had the composure to pay attention to the pottery because my visual sensors went into the most glorious state of overload I think I have ever experienced. The Davids inhabit a world that is crammed in the most delightful way with beautiful objects, found items, and fragments of memory. It’s the kind of clutter that doesn’t feel put on or pretentious. It feels like the accretion of two artistic minds who have been together for 40 years. It was just marvelous. I could have spent hours pawing through everything. And even though I asked permission before I snapped some photos, I still felt sheepish about taking as many pictures as I really wanted to take.

It was in the studio space where things got really interesting.

After the behind scenes tour, and meeting Hopkins who was manning their gift shop next door, we decided we needed of a stroll (and some ice cream) to decide which, if any, of the pieces in the gallery we may want to buy. In the end we decided on one large piece by Wilson and two smaller ones by other artists. There will be more on the Wilson piece after it arrives here in DC, but here is a snap of it below followed by some pictures of the gallery.

Tomorrow night is the Last Night of the Proms.

In 1992 I was working in London and bought a season ticket to the BBC Proms Festival at the Royal Albert Hall. My season ticket allowed me to queue up each night for a chance to have a bit of floor space for whatever amazing concert was on the docket for that night. I heads tons of great music, orchestras, and soloists that year. But as a young, and die-hard, Anglophile, I was particularly interested in going to the Last Night, which is a little on the zany side. (In many ways too zany for me.) I wrote about it at length in 2010.

Recently I came across a recording from that Last Night in 1992 and showed John the numerous, grainy, times I appear on the video. And if you don’t care so much about playing Where’s Waldo with my visage, you can enjoy Dame Kiri Te Kanawa (particularly at 25:45).

Anyhoo, here are all the times that I spotted myself. (The best shot begins at the 3:40 mark.)

3:07 to 3:17 That’s me in the white shirt and glasses looking quite stern in the bottom right of the image.

3:40 to 3:45 Singing “…wider still and wider…” from Land of Hope and Glory scrolling from the bottom left to the right. Kind of hard to miss me on this one.

4:25 to 4:32 About half way up the right of the screen.

5:13  I emerge from the right side of the screen as the camera pulls out.

13:45 I appear to be looking at, then yawning behind, my program.

14:05 In profile half way up the right side of the screen.

15:08 to 15:12 I begin to appear in the middle right and then move over off the right side of the screen.

20:01 to 20:04 I appear in the upper right looking at my program and humming along.

21:37 to 21:46 At Sir Andrew Davis’ shoulder level (to the right).

25:45 Lead up to Kiri’s high P-flat at 25:48. (Obviously I don’t have perfect pitch, but the note is high.)

34:01 to 34:21 –  Belting out God Save the Queen

 

I turned 49 on Friday which means I have entered my 50th year on the planet. Sad to think I only have 50 more to go. I’ve been thinking how nice it would be to really have my shit together by the time I hit the big 5-0 next August. Without trying to get all resolution-y, which is bound to fail, I do feel the desire to embark on a little self-improvement plan so that when the odometer clicks over 363 days from now I’m feeling good about my increasingly speedy march toward death.

The rule of 50
I’ve practiced the Rule of 50 ever since I read about it in Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust. Lately, however, 50 seems like a long way for some of the books I pick-up. With the Rule of 50 you get to subtract 1 page for every year you are over 50. As I approach that milestone, I feel that that is giving too much power to books I don’t want to read. My need to read a certain book because it is a classic, or well reviewed, or popular has diminished greatly over the past few years and I think that trend will continue. I think I might replace the Rule of 50 with the the Rule of As Soon as You Hate Something or Are Bored By It Feel Free to Move On.

I am fully aware that if I had done this with Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald earlier this summer I never would have finished what turned out to be a really wonderful, interesting book. But, you may recall that I actually did put that book aside (instead of purposely leaving it behind on a plane) but picked it up again a few weeks later. So I guess the setting aside doesn’t have to be forever.

Now, Mrs Osmond by John Banville is going to suffer a different fate. In this case I actually did get past page 50 but under my new rule, I would have put it down sooner. The thing is, I actually kind of liked aspects of it, but I have read at least two other John Banville novels and I find his writing style more tedious than interesting or beautiful. So Mrs Osmond gets banished and I never pick-up another Banville as long as I live. (Unless I do, in which case, okay.)

Voglio parlare una lingua straniera prima di morire
My class laughed when I gave this as my reason for taking Italian classes but it is the absolute truth. I want to speak a foreign language before I die. I’ve wanted this ever since 1992 when I was in a six-person couchette from Paris to Munich and my multi-lingual compartment mates could all communicate with each other, but none of them knew English. And it isn’t that they all spoke the same languages, rather it was like a game of telephone where the German guy knew Dutch and the Dutch guy spoke French to the French women, one of whom spoke Italian to the Italian guy who used his belt to further secure the couchette door so we wouldn’t get robbed (presumably). But being a language idiot, I was able to speak to no one. This was especially painful for me when, in the middle of the night, the couchette was about a thousand degrees, I was on the very top bunk, and thought I was going to die if I didn’t get some fresh air, but had no way of reasonably communicating that to the guy who had rigged the door to be intruder-proof. Twenty-six years later I still get a panic attack just thinking about it.

Hot train cars aren’t the only reason I want to speak a foreign language. I’ve always been impressed with friends who suddenly break out in a foreign language to communicate with someone (as opposed to just showing off). I sit there in awe and envy, marveling at this mostly hidden talent. And what about the Korean immigrant at my dry cleaner’s who not only speaks English but also speaks Spanish to the seamstress who works there.

So many times John and I would visit a foreign country and I would moan about wanting to spend a few months abroad learning another language. At one point it occurred to me that I can pretty much do that in the US with Spanish. Not only could I use it on a daily basis, but there are multiple TV channels, newspapers, and radio stations readily available. So about 3 years ago I started taking Spanish. For various reasons (mainly work) that became untenable for about a year. When I decided to get back into it, I realized my heart just wasn’t in it. Despite Spanish being an insanely practical language for an American to know, I kept thinking about the two years of college Italian that I took 1987-1989. Long story short, I decided to leverage that and give in to the fact that I really love Italian despite the limited opportunities I will have to use it.

So I have been taking Italian classes at the Italian Cultural Society here in DC  (well, Bethesda, but it is quite close to home). I’m very grateful to have the basis of my college studies, but my goal still seems so far away. During the last term I also met with a tutor for an hour a week in addition to my two-hour a week class. Over the summer I’ve been meeting with a tutor for two hours a week and have decided to keep that going when classes start up again next month. That way I will have at least four hours of instruction a week. And, although I haven’t been totally lazy, I need to step up how much I study at home. This is where I start to get resolution-y, I’m going to shoot for at least an hour of Italian every day. That’s only a measly 365 hours before my next birthday, but way better than if I didn’t try.

I should mention I’m using a carrot and stick approach. I’ve unilaterally made 2019 the International Year of Me Traveling. I’ve already booked a week in Milan in February on my own so I don’t fall back on talking to John in English. I can hear many of you say why February and why Milan. It has everything to do with La Scala. I want to hear a few opera at the world’s most famous opera house.

Maybe don’t eat the whole cake
I love to eat. I have a huge sweet tooth. In general I keep my weight under control, but I would like to reset my baseline. If I am going to have a periodic weight swing of 10 pounds (or more) I really would like to start from somewhere lower down the scale. And perhaps even more importantly I really need to improve the type of food I eat and the amount of exercise I get. My body feels way too old for 49 and I need to get off my ass more often.

Fewer screens
I was going to say “fewer screens and more pages”. But I’m actually reading a fair amount these days and need to use the (hopefully) found time to study Italian, get off my ass, be better about chores around the house, and just pursue other activities in general. This shouldn’t be too hard if I just cut off the time where I use screens as a crutch/time waster. If I stop sitting through shows I don’t find totally worthwhile, and if I stop clicking endlessly on internet junk, I will have plenty of time for worthwhile interactions with both media.

50/50
If I manage even 50% of these goals I will be feeling pretty good about turning 50 in 363 days. Or at least as good as a dying husk of a human can feel…

I’ve read 17 novels by Iris Murdoch, but about 14 of those I read more than a decade ago and in some cases almost 20 years ago. Most recently I re-read The Italian Girl in 2016 and it made me think that maybe Murdoch and I were no longer compatible. It was with some fear then that I picked up the somewhat largish novel The Philosopher’s Pupil. Thankfully my reassessment of The Italian Girl is not an indicator of how I feel about Murdoch in general. In fact, Murdoch–at least in this novel–is too good for me to risk using my own prose to critique hers, so it’s time for a bullet point review. (“Huzzah” shouted the crowd.)

• I loved this book. There were more than a few moments when I rolled my eyes to the point where, if this had been a lesser novel, I would have thrown it across the room. Yet my overall interest and delight in reading it was too great to let a little thing like exasperation ruin the experience.
• The novel is typical of Murdoch’s tendency towards big casts of characters all up in each other’s business, hopelessly and helplessly entwined and falling in love and hate left and right. Soap operas for Oxford dons or others of their ilk.
• If Philip Roth or some other august man of letters had written some of these male characters I would flame them for their chauvinism and outright creepiness. The central luminary in the book, John Robert Rosonov, is not only an asshole (yes, an asshole, an appellation none other than Nancy Pearl “liked” on Twitter), but his big secret is beyond creepy. Flesh crawling grossness. And most of the characters act like it’s a mere foible.
• If Philip Roth or some other august man of letters had written some of these female characters I would have screamed at the book  in rage. With little exception, the women in The Philosopher’s Pupil fall in love with the most dreadful men and they rarely have any qualms with that. They know the men are dreadful, sometimes violently so, but their love for them is so total and deep they can’t imagine being without the insufferable oafs. (Or would that be oaves? lol) What in the world was Murdoch trying to convey? Her women are not dingbats by any means, but still, I didn’t get the feeling that she was judging the men at all. Their bad behavior was just depicted as part of the landscape. Just the way it was. But goodness, this isn’t ancient history, it was published in 1983.

I have torched novels for lesser failings than this one has, so why do I love it? Because despite some characters and situations that make one think “oh brother”, the world Murdoch depicts is fascinating, her prose is a delight, and it’s so full of big ideas. In fact, one could also have a problem with the lengthy passages on philosophy, but if you are in the mood for that kind of thing, it is just the kind of thing you will like.

The Philosopher’s Pupil has reignited my love for Murdoch. So happy there are more to read and re-read. Alas, I should mention that I supposedly read this book in 2005, but at no point while reading it recently did I for one minute think I might have read it. I don’t know how I could blank so entirely on this book. I guess I’m glad I did because I wouldn’t have re-read it so soon otherwise.