Leeway

Jackson Pollock Sydney Pollak Castor and Pollux

BEND SINISTER - Vladimir Nabokov (1946). Paduk, the head of the Average Man Party, has taken over some unidentified Eastern European country and instituted a state tyranny. Paduk is opposed by his old schoolmate, and nemesis, the famed moral philosopher, Adam Krug. The story, such as it is, revolves around Paduk's attempts to get Krug to collaborate with the government, and Krug's efforts to resist. This could have been a fairly interesting, perhaps even important fiction along the lines of 1984 and Animal Farm. Perhaps recognizing that that comparison will be made, Nabokov, in the Author's Introduction, declares that this is not a novel concerned with real world issues and takes a swipe at Orwell, denigrating him for his cliches. Nevertheless, the reality is that Orwell's works are much superior to Nabokov's. The former have had an important influence on literature, society, and politics, while Bend Sinister remains a relatively obscure curiosity. There are at least several problems with the novel. First, Nabokov bulks so large in his own story, the reader has to peak around him to get a look at what is going on. Second, Nabokov loves violating the conventions of fiction; he's forever pulling back the curtain on his "conjuration," reminding the reader that it is all a Nabokovian invention. The reader knows. This seems less a stab at post-modernism on Nabokov's part than an impatience or even dismissal of such narrative; basically he could not be bothered with an actual novel. Third, the text is so clotted with archaic, obscure and foreign words (for which Nabokov is endlessly providing scholarly translations), it is practically impossible to get through a page without near-constant resort to a dictionary. Fourth, there is so much bitterness and contempt for practically everyone, not just the bad guys, it's hard to be concerned. One thing that bothered me is that Krug supposedly rises above all this, the incorruptible man, the moral man. But Krug brags that he used to torment Paduk as a schoolboy by sitting on Paduk's head every day after school. Is this moral? Krug feels Paduk had it coming, but that is hardly better than Paduk's state tyranny, indeed may be an inflated version of it. Fifth, the endless digressions get tiresome. The best of them, a deconstruction and reconstruction of Hamlet is quite long, rather brilliant if wrong-headed, but what it has to do with the Krug-Paduk story is hardly clear, Last, when Nabokov does venture to reach for real human connectedness, something in very short supply in this story, it teeters on the brink of sentimentality. Anyway, enough disparagement. I guess if it is approached as a book of wordplay, an untangling of conceits, a parsing of digressions, or even as something to fit a political theory, then this could be a rewarding read. Otherwise, this could be a slog. I've read that this was Nabokov's least popular book, and that it was widely panned at publication. I'm not really surprised. I don't think time has vindicated it either.

Iggy Pop Ignatz Krazy Kat

Pisseur de copie Hector Mrs. Hawkins

Munchausen Chewy Steve Swallow

Stanley Homer Hicks

Inspector Gadget Mr. Gadgrind Grendel

Always liked his playing with Art Pepper.

Blonde on Blonde Judy Blue Eyes L.A. Woman

Thanks for that account of Trio X. I'm a staunch Joe McPhee fan, in whatever ensemble he's playing. Wonderful person too. I've seen Trio X a couple of times, but it has been quite a while. Wasn't sure if they were still touring. Any word on what the problem was with Dominick Duval?

What I've always liked in those Prestige dates is the fiery, keening, naked quality of Jackie's sound. It's just so pure and intense. So youthful, really, a sort of swaggering Romeo. At least that's the way I've heard them.

George Sand Muddy Waters Wade Boggs

Came across this in a Nabokov novel: SOUGH- a sigh or deep breath, make a moaning, whistling, or rushing sound (as in the sea or forest). This is an Old English/Middle English word, probably known to our UK contingent, but I found it hard to place at first glance, although context was indicative. I suppose it is related to, or a variant, of SIGH, or vice versa.

THE REAL LIFE OF SEBASTIAN KNIGHT - (1941) - Vladimir Nabokov It has been a shockingly long time since I have read any Nabokov, who used to be an important author in my literary firmament at one time, as he was generally. Is that last part still true? Except for the usual case of Lolita, he seems not to be much discussed these days in a serious way. Hope I am wrong about that. In any event, Knight proved a very entertaining read, with all of Nabokov's usual characteristics. As the book's narrator relates from a review of one of Sebastian Knight's novels, "It's fun seemed to me obscure, and its obscurities funny, but possibly there exists a kind of fiction the niceties of which will always elude me." One of many examples of Nabokov' self-reflexive playfulness (?). Or as another reader of Knight's novels states, “Knight seemed to him to be constantly playing some game of his own invention, without telling his partners its rules.” So it is with Nabokov, as the story progresses through ever elaborating rings of appearance and reality, fiction and history, self and not-self, real and illusory, and on. It's fiction as conjuration. Another of Nabokov's elusive butterflies.

Paul Bowles Plato Dishwalla

Snuggle Buddies Buddy Rich Buddy Guy

Although I'm a physical object guy (LPs, CDs), I have to admit that I think the download crowd has it over us in this case. All the music on an iPad/iPod or music server, all the books on a Kindle or Nook, easy to dispose of, or to keep, as the case may be. Nice to think of a son or daughter, or grandson or daughter, picking up the music storage device and finding out they like this music called jazz, or the book device and getting an interest in that author you've always favored. Something to be said for that.

Gus Van Sant Lee Van Cleef Van Cleef and Arpels

Just finished Drabble's The Waterfall (1969), and my reaction falls neatly between johnblitweiler's and Bill F's, the former chucking the book aside, the latter praising its intense inner monologue. I finished the book but I didn't find it easy. The protagonist, and part-time narrator, Jane Grey, has to be among the most neurotic characters I've come across, a mash-up at times of Oblomov and the narrator of Notes from the Underground. An Oxford graduate (but with an inferior degree- a joke I suppose), she is defeated by everything from putting the bread away to taking the bus. She's incredibly inept for the most part, but there seems to be a deeper meaning to that ineptness that eluded me. Her husband has left her after a violent scene (not to be condoned (it doesn't seem to affect Jane too much), but after a few hundred pages of Jane perhaps understandable), and she takes as a lover, a day after giving birth to her second child, James, the husband of her cousin Lucy. Lucy is more than a cousin really, in all respects Lucy is Jane's sister and near look-alike. Jane obsesses her way through the adulterous relationship, defying all logic, morality, convention, anti-convention, or romance. I guess that is the point of the book: a love affair that exists outside of all definitions. Jane's habit of asking endless rhetorical questions and then acting in various improbable ways got tiresome for me. Having said that, there are powerful and even beautiful moments in the book, meditations on Elizabethan song, the card tricks that give the story its title, the car accident, but these are quickly deflated. In general, the story itself is deflationary. What looks to start out as a Jacobean tragedy, or even Elizabethan comedy, becomes a mundane suburban tale. Everyone knows that Drabble and her sister A.S. Byatt have no love lost for each other, indeed, rather detest each other. It seems to me that this novel is a Drabble salvo in her war with Byatt, with Jane and Lucy, and James and Malcolm (Jane's husband), serving as proxies. The work seems heavily coded in this altercation. I think the novel is also a working out of Drabble's literary aesthetic. Jane is a poet, and as the novel moves to an end, a certain literary code is established. I suspect this code is also contra Byatt. One last thing, the alternation between first-person and third-person narrative seemed to have no purpose or effect. I respect that the novel got under my skin, I respect the craft, but I can't say I enjoyed it much. Just finished another one, The Waterfall. Powerful interior monologue - a good read. It's so sad that it is clear in the past I read too fast, particularly in the mid 90s. I look over lists of books that I read and can remember very little about them. AFAIK, I read Drabble's trilogy (The Radiant Way, A Natural Curiosity and The Gates of Ivory) and that's it. There is one fairly powerful image I remember from The Gates of Ivory and that's about it. Maybe someday I will make a dedicated run through her novels (a second time in some cases), though it is not a particularly high priority.

Luciano Pavarotti Nino Rota Nino Bravo

Chuck Traynor Marilyn Chambers Linda Lovelace

Wendy's Auntie Ann's Nathan's

Marcus Printup Johannes Gutenberg Paperback Writer

Diana Nyad The Naiads Nautilus

Minnie Driver Taxi Driver Latka