even books

I’ve always been fond of Washington-born writer Michael Chabon, aka Leon Chaim Bach aka Malachi B. Cohen aka August Van Zorn (his pen names, apparently).

Fond is probably the fairest word. He’s like a loveable, genius puppy dog, who can not only talk, but do a mean impression of Rodin’s The Thinker and pen a Lonely Planet guide to the art of meditation on the Inca Trail, all before hitting his breakfast bowl.

Of his 1988 debut novel The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (written when he was 25 – so earnest! so precocious! he must’ve been a royal shit) I wrote, “he speaks like a flower paddock … still, beautiful language, the kind that makes writers skip ahead frantically, eyes begging for an error.” Yeah, I just quoted myself. Watch my citations soar!

He’s probably most famous for his 2001 Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, but also for sophomore effort Wonder Boys (later made into a movie starring Suri’s Mom), and he has also dabbled in screenplays (Spider-Man 2) and wearing raspberry t-shirts.

And now, Telegraph Avenue, a 600-kg wedge of deceased wood that the blurb describes as a “Californian Middlemarch set to the funky beat of classic vinyl soul-jazz.” That should’ve set off my alarm bells! Californian Middlemarch? Funky?!

It’s an epic charting big guy, little guy: with old-school record shop Brokeland, eccentric owners Nat and Archy, their homebirthing wives, wayward sons and missing fathers all versus ex-footballer hero and mega-musical-franchise owner Gibson Goode and his cartel of errand-running cousins and shady connections. This awkward sentence doesn’t begin to touch on the level of complexity this novel gets you into. Each page is a dense, hieroglyphic-like communiqué from Planet Neuroses (constellation Pop Culture).

Even making or consuming food becomes a playground of cryptic and detailed arcana:

“At 9.45am the first batch of chickens sank, to the sound of applause, into the pig fat. The fat set about its great work, coaxing that beautiful Maillard reaction out of the seasoned flour, the smell of golden brownness mingling with the warm , dense, bay-leafy, somehow bodily funk of the beans, and with the summertime sourness of the greens like the memory of white Keds stained at the toes with fresh-cut grass, Nat stepped through the time portal that opened within the ring of seasoned iron.”

and

“Aviva went back down to the kitchen and began angrily to cook Titus’s stated favourite breakfast, pancakes and bacon. She broke the eggs as if they were the spurious arguments of unworthy adversaries. With the contempt we reserve for those who fail to deliver on arrant boasts, she watched the bacon shrink in its own fat. She peeled the bubbling pancakes from the griddle and flipped them over with a sense of cutting off a pointless discussion. In the batter, buttermilk and baking soda enacted their allegory of her emotional pH.”

If Chabon is not shy about using breakfast goods as elaborate and edible mood rings, then you know you are not in for an easy ride.

Did his editor get fired? Did he lose his delete button? Has he forgotten to sleep?

If before Chabon’s language was a ‘flower paddock,’ this is now full-blown rabid jungle. And who can be bothered wading through a 465-page jungle?

I probably will bother, but not without grumbling about it.

- AB

Dunno if you heard, but the world is supposed to be ending on December 21, 2012.

And dunno if you heard, but Even Books have been working on a thingy with Branches, imprint of The Nest.

Coincidence?

Not really.

We figured what everyone needs for their ration packs is a whizbang new iPad journal full of some sweet writers and what they love most.

Not cans. Cans are for cheaters.

It’ll be out mid-December.

So, watch this space. Or, go away and come back, whatever’s easier.

Junot Diaz is one of those effortless writers that connects dowsing rod to earth and out gushes pure, unadulterated life.

He is also officially now a genius, having been awarded a MacArthur fellowship (along with a mandolin player, an optical physicist, and a conceptual photographer) in this year’s round. Apparently he might use the time to pen a sci-fi novel.

I could’ve told them he was a genius. I am only halfway his latest collection of short stories, This is how you lose her, and already it’s obvious he has an IQ that could break you in two (his words).

I love this:

“Every fifty feet there’s at least one Eurofuck beached out on a towel like some scary pale monster that the sea’s vomited up. They look like philosophy professors, like budget Foucaults …”

And this:

“When it came to my brother, it was written across her face in 112-point Tupac Gothic.”

Those are the moments you shake your head, and think damn. I give up.

Before you do though, make sure you check him out managing to make a polo shirt look sexy and clever. Oh, and read his books.
– AB

Having devoured Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom with ‘heedless pleasure’ I was pretty prepared to give Where’d You Go, Bernadette? a rip with his selfsame glowing endorsement, despite a pulpy cover and Playschool-esque title. Also, my Mum gave it to me and I had nothing else to read.

The most startling thing about the book is not that they all end up in a remote camp in Antarctica via cruise ship – but rather that we are expected to believe that anyone actually writes to each other anymore. Where’d You Go, Bernadette? is a narrative charting the collapse and disappearance of one Bernadette Fox, as patched-together by her clever and sensitive 15-year-old daughter Bee through assorted email transcripts, journal out-takes, scribbled notes, blog posts, actual letters, and faxes (faxes!). It’s rather distractingly cute that everyone takes time out from their busy lives to drop a line, but once you get past that hard-to-swallow fact, this is a delightful adventure that bubbles along under full steam of twee. It’s a bit like a Wes Anderson ensemble piece; chic, manicured and adorably unbelievable.

The ensemble looks something like this: Father Elgin Branch is a genius at Microsoft, who has taken to divulging his marital woes to his new assistant, Soo-Lin. Mother Bernadette is a one-time architect genius, who has taken to divulging her mid-life crises to a virtual assistant in India. Neighbour Audrey is a nutjob who makes sure all the drama that ensues is divulged in the school’s newsletter. Some pretty funny things erupt between these various simmering mole-hills: Bernadette allegedly runs over Audrey’s foot at school pick-up; a backyard dispute involving blackberries ends in a catastrophic mudslide; and a farcical intervention bizarrely brings in a psychiatrist, some FBi agents, and the Russian mafia.

But the quiet beauty at the centre of the novel is held by Bee, who is clearly one of those of gentle and mature teenagers that gives us less-developed humans a bad name. Unlike the many so-called adults in her life, Bee only ever loses her shit in defence of her zany mom. Her clear-eyed appraisal of the land of grey, grey and more grey, Antartica, is delivered like a chilling précis of the human condition: “I got a huge knot in my stomach because if Antarctica could talk, it would be saying only one thing: you don’t belong here.” The Bee bits, spoken earnestly from the first-person, are the bread and butter of this novel – the rest, the kind of ridiculous hundreds and thousands.

Together, Where’d You Go Bernadette? is a sweet and not very serious tale from one-time TV writer Maria Semple (SNL, Arrested Development) – fittingly and funly for a script writer, you can’t help imagining this as a movie, and running your own imaginary casting sessions. Right down to the penguins. Now, time to send my Mum a thank you note.

– AB

This high-class moving image was our contribution to the recent Joseph Allen Shea curated exhibtion, In Synthesis. One sign company refused to hire out their gear cos the words were too rude. If that’s not revolutionary art what is? There was also a rad video by the Kingpins, some nice arty cobwebs by Kevina-Jo Smith, plus stuff from Chicks on Speed, Kate Mitchell, Agatha Gothe-Snape and more. Just like the Oscars, we were honoured to be in the same category as these talented ladies. If you have a moment, read this brief write-up here … if only cos they refer to us as ‘famous’ in it. We are also quoted here (ha-ha!) and are spied draped hilariously over the equipment here.

Created with Gifboom

Eli Schwartz is the slack-jawed, tubby-tummied hero of Flatscreen, the sophomore effort of US writer Adam Wilson. Eli has graduated high school only to find himself jobless, girlfriendless, and living in a condo in suburbia with his depresso, wine-guzzling Mom. YAWN, right? But then things take a turn for the sorta interesting when he develops a friendship with the washed-up actor who moves into his childhood home. This guy, Seymour Kahn, is also wheelchair-bound, with a penchant for prescription drugs, strippers, and according to Eli, Eli himself. Seymour has a messed up little family he tries to stay away from, much like Eli, so the two get along great guns … until, that is, one of them gets shot. Yeah, for real.

Author Wilson is a former TV blogger for Flavorwire so it’s no surprise his writing is peppered with about a million movie references and lots of OMG internet shorthand speak. It’s about as easy to chomp through as confectionary, and eventually gives you just about as much of a headache. The best joke is when the Mom ends up moving to Florida to date a Jeff Goldblum-But-Spelt-Differently. From all these cultural in-jokes, I guess we’re supposed to feel like Eli is our buddy, our friendly neighbourhood dropkick … but really, if I met this guy at a party, I’d probably clink beer bottles and move on.

You can definitely see a pattern here. Eli sits comfortably alongside other 20th century apathetic anti-heroes: I’m thinking the phony-phobic Holden Caulfield of Catcher in the Rye, or even Reality Bites’ couch-surfing stubblefest, Troy Dyer. In fact, Flatscreen would’ve probably been more comfortable in the 90s full-stop. It’s angst-ridden and makes some questionable fashion choices – with Eli spending a few scenes swanning about stoned in a flannel bed robe.

That said, Flatscreen does a convincing job of communicating to us the malaise of a modern-day America, which really hasn’t changed that much since then. By the end of the novel you don’t up caring much … but then, maybe that’s the point.

- AB

A Tiger in Eden is the debut novel from Melbourne writer Chris Flynn. Originally from Belfast, he’s taken his knowledge of ‘The Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, combined it with his knowledge of sexy backpacker party times, and created a bit of an Eat Pray Love for men, only with more fisticuffs. Luckily, this isn’t nearly as bad as it sounds.

Our protagonist is Billy – a loyalist hard man who did unspeakable things as part of an Ulster paramilitary group in the 90s. He’s on the run from the Belfast police and lying low in southern Thailand.

He gets drunk, gets tanned, has a whole lot of meaningless sex, dabbles with the idea of getting back into crime, then somehow finds himself in a Buddhist retreat where he learns that no matter how far you travel your past will always catch up with you (this is the point where I started to feel the Eat Pray Love vibes). Billy goes on to meet a special lady who changes the game, and he has a soul wrenching yet life-affirming moment after taking a bunch of pills at a full moon party. Oh, and he also stares down an escaped tiger with his tough guy eyes, saving himself and his lady from a violent demise.

Yeah, a lot of this is full on male fantasy: namely, the barrage of sex scenes with hot young European backpackers and the fight sequences where Billy feels immortal and seems unstoppable. The writing itself is great though. Flynn creates a thick Irish brogue for Billy and uses very little grammar in order to capture the cadences and pace of Irish speech. This takes some getting used to but ultimately lends the book a fantastic energy. The premise itself - a hard man in a tropical paradise - is also compelling. I would have preferred more insight into the Irish situation itself and less insight into the types of muffs Billy encountered on his journey, but hey, that’s just me. You might really get into the muffs.

– AF

Who would ever ban a book? Apart from the guy who played Hitler in the final and best Indiana Jones movie, The Last Crusade? Heaps of people, that’s who – and Australia has a particularly sticky record of it. Elmo Keep and I talked about some of the notable bannings Australia and overseas (Jackie Collins’ 1969’s The Stud, anyone?) and the future of banned books in the world of internet free-for-all with Jesse Cox late in September.

They’ve taken down the podcast so unfortunately you can’t download and listen to our dulcet tones on repeat, so here’s some interesting tidbits to sate you…

How do books get banned?

WHO bans WHAT has been historically messy in Australia, thanks to our overlapping Federal and state legislations: it could be state, it could be federal, it could be the Attorney General, it could be the postal service, it could be the ‘dirty books detail’ of Customs.

Each state had an ‘Obscene Publications Act’, plus there was a ‘Customs Act’ monitoring national borders.

It even sometimes came down to the discretion of the printers, some old fuddies not wanting to set rude words in type.

Things commonly banned: erotica, sex outside marriage, euthanasia, birth control, illicit substances, anarchic texts, homosexuality, so-called obscenities and incitements to violence. Restrictions are usually based on the vague idea of whether it’s ‘likely to cause offence.’
It is only usually unlawful to import, sell or deliver.

Australia in the 1930s and 40s was the height of censorship, with around 5000 books on the banned list.

The Office of Film and Literature Classification in 2006 became known the Australian Classification Board. (omitting Literature from the title, however, some ‘permittable’ publications are still evaluated by the Board)

Some notable bannings:

Lady Chatterley’s Lover

Written by DH Lawrence, this was first published by a porno printing press in Italy and Paris (1928/1929)

In it, Lady Chatterley has an affair with her working-class gameskeeper, Oliver Mellors. Here’s a racy bit:

“And this time the sharp ecstasy of her own passion did not overcome her; she lay with hands inert on his striving body, and do what she might, her spirit seemed to look on from the top of her head, and the butting of his haunches seemed ridiculous to her, and the sort of anxiety of his penis to come to its little evacuating crisis seemed farcical. Yes, this was love, this ridiculous bouncing of the buttocks, and the wilting of the poor insignificant, moist little penis.”

Banned in Britain until 1960 when Penguin took it to court under new obscenity legislation and it was declared ‘not guilty’. Despite this, in 1961 the ban was retained by the Menzies government in Australia. Famously, a copy was smuggled into Sydney via 34 separate letters.

Finally hit the shelves in 1965 when it was published locally (thus circumventing customs).
In Oct 2009 the book escaped the Australia Post banning of three ‘challenging’ books (Nabokov’s Lolita, Anais Nin’s Delta of Venus and Foucault’s History of Sexuality, despite its liberal use of the C and F words).

Slaughterhouse 5

This 1969 time-ripper by Kurt Vonnegut was still being banned as of August 2011 – with a Missouri highschool striking it off the syllabus for creating: “false conceptions of American history and government or that teach principles contrary to Biblical morality and truth,” even though Vonnegut was a decorated war veteran.

An anonymous donor along with the Kurt Vonnegut Library offered to donate free copies to any of the 150 students who had been meant to study the text.

Even Books did a Slaughterhouse 5 musical spectacular once at TINA! It was a choose-your-own-adventure and there was a real-live Montana Wildhack living in a space zoo.

Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Despite the book’s use of the ‘N’ word over 200 times, this seminal American classic by Mark Twain was most often banned for its ‘coarse’ language:

“Huck not only itched but scratched, and he said sweat when he should’ve said perspiration.” (Brooklyn Public Library, 1905)

The Anarchist Cookbook

William Powell, 1971

The author of this 1971 cult classic tried to ban his own book after converting to Christianity in 2000 – unfortunately for him, he no longer owned the rights.

1984

George Orwell, 1949

Ironically, for a book sending a grim message about totalitarian censorhip, this Orwellian tour de force is frequently censored or banned, even for its supposed ‘pro-Communism.’

The Satanic Verses

Salman Rushdie, 1988

One of the most inflammatory novels ever written, this book resulted in a riot in Pakistan and the death of five people, a death warrant on the head of the author valued at $1 million, and the death of a Japanese translator who was ‘stabbed to death’ for his involvement. This is for its approach to the Islam faith – throughout, Rushdie refers to the Prophet Muhammad as Mahound (a medieval name for the Devil.)

So, Sunday past we hit the macaroni for our first ever segment on FBi’s Canvas, entitled, rather imaginatively, ‘Even Books on FBi.’ Our host was Jesse Cox and he was super (he was also wearing a great sweater, which those in radio land sadly missed out on). We talked about books and then Jesse interviewed Marieke Hardy for us. Here are some funny things we said:

About our ‘sting’, which is radio speak for some kind of jingle: “AIR HORNS!” *giggles*

Our parties: “Everyone in the room has at least one topic of conversation to conversate about … hence the need for lubrication.”

On pretending we are urban rappers: “We wanted to make the B Club [a literary salon in London] more street, more gutter yknow.”

On one of the smartest women in America: “Tina Fey: a rollicking ride.”

One thing you should probably never suggest on a book club segment: “If you can’t be bothered to read, watch YouTube instead.”

A phrase Virginia Woolf has probably never heard used in relation to her work: “Sensorial zest.”

And some excellent things Marieke Hardy said about her book, You’ll be Sorry When I’m Dead:

On stories like the one that takes place in a Swinger’s Club: “They’re not sexy-sex, Nikki Gemmell stories…”

On baring all: “There’s more raw honesty than dick jokes.”

On allowing those mentioned an unedited ‘right-of-reply’: “That felt like the braver part of the book. Letting go of the reins.”

On the ‘real’ Marieke: “For funny stories, there is a point where you have to be a caricature.”

On her highschool zine: “We nearly broke the photocopier in the library with Sex Bus!”

We unfortunately didn’t get to ask her about season two of her black comedy TV series Laid, which is in-production. If we did, we hope she would’ve said this: “Your box set is in the mail.”

You can listen to the on-demand stream here.

And as for some books we’d like to recommend? On air, we only touched on a few. Ok, two, to be exact. But here are a few more, in random order. Don’t like random? Just you wait till we are such mega-gods of radio and book reviews that we put them in Dewey Decimal AND alphabetical order. Then you’ll be sorry.

Bossypants (Tina Fey) - A spiky blend of humour, introspection and critical thinking from one of the most beloved comedy writers of our time. Pretty much non-stop zingers. You’d have to have been in hiding not to have noticed all the press about it a few months back.
There but for the is by Scottish writer Ali Smith, a lady who looks a little bit like a friendly goblin. It’s about a man called Miles who attends a dinner party and then halfway through, as the hostess torches the crème brulees, disappears into the spare room and refuses to come out. He leaves a note: Fine for water but will need food soon. Vegetarian, as you know. Thank you for your patience. The hosts kind of seem like assholes but still, it’s hard to know what anyone would be like in that situation. They find a random number in his phone book of a lady called Anna who he’d known, barely, twenty years before, so they call her and ask her to come help coax him out. It becomes about how one event can fuse together many stories, which is an Ali Smith trademark. Her Hotel World is about how various women – a maid, a ghost, an eccentric hostel visitor, a homeless lady – are brought together over one night. The Accidental is about one family’s very hot sticky summer spent in the country, and an accidental house guest they acquire, and how she turns all their lives upside down. Smith is a deft and beautiful writer, given to gusts of sensory perceptions and Madeline cake moments – one bite leading to pages of memories and thoughts. You can see a lot of Virginia Woolf in her style, which is very vivid. There but for the came out 2011. (AB)
The Life (Malcolm Knox) tells the story of Dennis Keith (DK), a 58 year old former surf champion who now suffers from OCD and lives with his mum in her nursing home, too fat to sit on a surfboard let alone stand on one. He’s a fictional character, but quite heavily based on real world surf champion Michael Peterson, a famously volatile surfer who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. It’s a story of self destructive genius, and it’s also a great snapshot of Australia at a particular time, when seaside towns changed under the hands of developers.

People can’t help but compare it to Tim Winton’s Breath, but in stark contrast to Winton’s ornate descriptions of ‘men dancing upon waves’, The Life is written in the language of the line-up: ‘I done this’, ‘yous done that’.

The story is told in the third person and then the first, jumps around between past and present, is crammed with half-sentences, broken sentences, with repetition and colloquialisms. At first everything feels a bit wrong: too choppy, too abrupt, but after a while you go with it, stop noticing, and the words take you somewhere else. A bit like when you first try reading Irvine Welsh. Highly recommended. (AF)
Revolutionary Road is a novel by Richard Yates and is thought of by many as an American classic. It follows the marital breakdown of April and Frank Wheeler, and by extension the breakdown of the American Dream. In the movie directed by Sam Mendes the pair are played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo Dicaprio, who are both appropriately attractive and troubled (also, Titanic 2.0!). It has been described as American Beauty circa 1955 and it certainly shares some themes: the disillusionment with the suburban idyll, a vitriolic but also somehow loving marriage, a generation of children who suffer as a by-product of their parent’s decisions. The only problem I had with it was that Yates seemed to dislike his own female character, April – she was beautiful but ultimately not understood. It was very much a man’s tale. Still, fifty years later, it remains a searing and prescient portrait of an America in decline. (AB)
Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) is one of the classics I’m embarrassed to have never got around to reading, and the reason I’m finally doing it now is that I can’t stand to read the book after I’ve seen the film (and I do really want to see the film). So I began with a resigned ‘this will be good for me’ sigh. But happily, I’m just loving it to death. The incorruptible Ms Eyre herself isn’t in the least bit annoying, the conversations between characters are often profound and frankly it’s making me want to be a more clean-living, virtuous person. (AF)

Curse of the Wolf Girl is the follow up to Lonely Werewolf Girl, both by Scottish writer Martin Millar, who looks more like a grumpy elf. While rather silly, it’s lots of fun. The heroine is a snarly but beautiful werewolf warrior called Kalix, and it’s all about her and her messed up royal werewolf family, plus some fire elementals obsessed with fashion, and an overweight or maladjusted human or two. Neil Gaiman rates Millar’s work and so do I. (AB)

I will also admit to this week buying the first instalment in the Game of Thrones saga by fantasy heavyweight George R.R. Martin. And so bid adieu to any spare time I may have had over the next two centuries or so. (AB)

And I’m looking forward to reading A Spectacle of Dust, Pete Postlethwaite’s autobiography, not just because he had a “face like a f-ing stone archway”. (AF)

That’s it! Tune in next time for a back-to-back recitation of James Joyce’s Ulysses, in Dutch-Swahili.

+ + even books + +

Oh hi! Hello! It’s been a while. We’ve been holed up in a cave eating Reader’s Digest. No, not really. As if we’d get that desperate!

But anyway whatever we have been doing has been worth the wait, cos check out our next event … you just might wet your pants.

Tinah Feyman’s BEDPANTS

Tina Fey’s that lady everybody’s obsessed with right now. She created Liz Lemon, gets to work daily with Alec Baldwin, and did a truly excellent impression of Sarah Palin on SNL a while back. She also recently wrote a book called Bossypants that’s so full of funny you can read it front-to-back then back-to-front then front-to-back again and not get bored.
Sarah Silverman is also funny, also worked for SNL, and also recently wrote a book that’s excellent (The Bedwetter). Coincidence? Well, yes. But who cares, because Even Books are combining the witticisms and fart gags of these super-comediennes for a Late Night Library event you won’t soon forget: Tinah Feyman’s BEDPANTS.

For your entertainment:

- Two team of dickheads debate: Are Women Funny?
- An homage to Alec Baldwin
- A guessing game with a difference (hint: it involves pee)
- Doody cookies
- Caricatures of your face as Tina Fey or Sarah Silverman
- Golden classics like: “I’m F**king Matt Damon” and “Pam, The Overly-Confident, Morbidly Obese Woman”

Reference material, i.e. read or die:

- Sarah Silverman’s The Bedwetter
- Tina Fey’s Bossypants

When: Thursday August 4
When more specifically: starting at 8pm, finishing at 10pm (for real curfew)
Where: Surry Hills Library 405 Crown St Surry Hills
How: Sexy Bookings Hotline: 8374 6230 (seriously, you have to book)