Random Thoughts

I read a book by Stevenson many, many years ago, and then I didn’t read any more of his books. So either that book was just awful, or I just plain forgot? In any case, I bought this book four years ago, and then forgot to read it.

This book is quite good! Much better than I’d expected. Stevenson writes pretty well — he has a tendency to get into the weeds trying to squeeze in witticisms here and there — but on the whole, it flows well. The characters have character, and the plot is satisfyingly intricate without becoming ridiculous. A thoroughly entertaining mystery/thriller, and now I’m going to buy a couple more of his books.

The only thing I don’t like about this book is that it’s a print on demand book (I think) with one of those horrible “soft touch” phthalate covered covers, which is just yucky to hold.

On the Other Hand, Death (1984) by Richard Stevenson (buy new, buy used, 3.92 on Goodreads)

I finished this book today (I’ve been reading it over the past few weeks), and that means that I can tell you my story about American customer service!

A few years back I ran out of new issues of The Paris Review to read, and as I was in the US at the time, I wondered idly whether any used bookstores would have any old issues I could snap up. We were strolling down Haight Street (San Francisco, that is) and passed some random (pretty large) book store, so we popped in. I found the more literary section and they had some anthologies and stuff there, but I didn’t see any Paris Reviews.

So I did something I never do — I asked the woman behind the counter whether they happened to have any. “What? Paris Review? Is that that poetry magazine!? I don’t know where you’re from, mister, but in this country rents aren’t cheap, and we can’t afford to carry that crap! It’s worth nothing! Are you insane!? Try Amazon! They’re giving it away!” She may still have been ranting after I exited the shop; I can’t quite remember…

Anyway, I bought this at a different used book store on the same trip, but didn’t get around to reading it until now. This is from 1992, and it’s an oddball issue — it starts off with an 80 page “seance” by James Merrill and David Jackson. The conceit is that they use a Ouija board to interview a whole bunch of dead authors. It’s funny, and it’s quite obscene.

The rest is more normal, but man, people in 1992 were chatty! I guess this was at the tail end of the post-modern literature era, where books got longer and longer. Somebody theorised that it’s because text processing became something that most authors used, and it’s so much easier to just go on and on and on typing on a computer vs on a typewriter or (gasp) by hand. Not that I know anything about going on and on and on just because it’s so easy to keep typing (especially when you don’t care about spelling good, grammer; and orthography.

But I liked this poem by Thomas Lynch. It’s about cats! It’s sweet.

This one by Laurie Sheck is good, too:

*gulp*

There’s an interview with Yehuda Amichai that’s really interesting.

One other stark difference between this 1992 issue and more recent issues is how much poetry there is in it. I’d say that modern issues are four fifths prose (at least) by page, but here it more than half poetry.

I’m not complaining, though.

Anyway, recalling that anecdote about that kindly bookstore owner made me wonder what these things go for these days. She’s probably right that these don’t turn over often, though — I mean, the demand is probably extremely marginal.

When I got home from the trip, I bought a whole bunch of older issues, but I bought them directly from The Paris Review. I bought a couple from each decade, but I haven’t gotten around to reading any of them yet.

The Paris Review #122 (1992) (buy used, buy new)

I stumbled across this while doing some testing of the “missed books” command in bookiez.el. It’s one of those “… and FAMOUS DEAD AUTHOR” books, so I assumed it was going to be totally awful. But I saw that it had positive reviews, so I gave it a shot.

It’s pretty bad. I mean, it’s competently written on a sentence by sentence basis, but it’s got none of Sayers’ charm and wit. It’s just incredibly tedious. I made it one quarter through before realising I just didn’t care at all about what was going on, and I ditched it.

A Presumption of Death (2002) by Jill Paton Walsh (buy used, 4.02 on Goodreads)