s&d : books about cities...

Dublin: "Dubliners"
Chicago: "City on the Make" or "Studs Lonigan"
New York: "Forever" (Pete Hamill)

There was another one about London a couple years back by some well-known author, but I don't remember the name of it. Maybe it was just called 'London' or 'A History Of London' or something. I don't remember.

Both of these are as gorgeous as it gets, even though Williams' verges on guidebook (where to eat, etc.). I had no prior interest in the Keys, and maintain reluctance to anywhere near, but much as with a good McPhee piece, my prior interest wasn't a prerequisite. It's a very rare thing, really, when world-class authors write guidebooks.

M.

i think there's something necessarily personal about a good psychogeography, or a good travel book...

I haven't read "London Perceived" but from reading a little bit about it on the web it sounds a little too information-based, fact-oriented to match my understanding of psychogoegraphy.

Have any of you read any Ralph Rumney? I haven't but I'm very keen to. Apparently he was kicked out of the Situs for failing to turn in a psychogeographical report on time...

that's a good point, and it is based on historical fact as opposed to his experience ... though it is full of statements like "on any given sunday one may see...", some of which are far too specific and eccentric to be anything but his own personal experience (these are some of the funniest bits of the book).

also, many of the "facts" are tall tales, rumors, traditional stories handed down, self-spun myths, etc. i have to say, i love that in travelogues, the more straight-faced the better ("gangs of new york"!)

(Sorry--couldn't avoid the Peck-ism.)

But to some degree, I might mean it. The Intuitionist was a pleasant enough piece of light neo-fabulism, whatever obviousness of the significance it grasped at, but John Henry Days I completed out of sheer force of will, tooth-grinding, toe-twisting, etc.

The man has no sense of his own prose. I gave the first page or three of JHD to students of mine as an exercise in what not to do as a writer, ie, one shouldn't strain for meanings you can't make evident directly by simply incessantly repeating yourself and making bold declarations. And it's also a good idea to control your register, to know when you're in pseudo-patois and when you're in schtick, when boldly realist and when hyperconscious.

And then there is the simple ungainliness of the writing, throughout. These aren't memories I revisit happily, I can promise you.

I'll admit, though, that I did enjoy Whitehead's gentle ribbing of Ford a while back--and he did seem to have some control of himself, then. Perhaps it's merely a momentary dystrophy, and he'll happily go back to being a mildly humorous, reasonably competent writer of the light-middlebrow. The title of his newest book, however, bodes ill for this.

M.

There are times when I wonder if I'm somehow like the mother of Garp, who (it is written) thinks that a book is good if it's on an important subject (er, that's a paraphrase - and a lousy one at that); I think that I tend to disregard how something is written and pay more attention to what is written - if I like a story, then the chances are that I'll overlook (and honestly not even be aware of) flaws in the writing.

BUT, here's an interesting website that I stumbled across while looking for an image of Susan Straight's I Been in Sorrow's Kitchen and Licked Out the Pots (which is similar to Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees but more literary, well-written, and marvelous). Anyway, here's the site: Vacation Book Review. I've spent far too much time at it today.