Acht Questions

A view up the driveway at the Lake.

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During their recent visit to Saint Paul, my parents told a story of the local paper back home. The editorial staff apparently is quite young and relies on kneejerk AP style edits without analyzing the content of what comes over the wire. When a news item went out about the Enola Gay--the plane that dropped one of the atomic bombs on Japan during World War II--it was picked up and published in the local paper as the "Enola Homosexual."

Sensitivity training has gone WAY too far.

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And now we turn to a bit of Q & A about books--Eight responses inspired by Leuchtkind's German/English blog:

A book that changed your life: Hunger by Knut Hamsun

A book you are reading: The Lighthouse by PD James

A book you wish you’d written: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami…especially if I could improve the first 30 pages.

A book you’ve read more than once: Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson. (B & C: I still have the signed copy you gave me…though the spine is now one of invertebrate flimsiness.)

A book you wish you’d never read: Being Dead by Jim Crace. I’ve eyed with suspicion the Booker Prize ever since. Christ is that book a waste of time. But I read every regrettable page. (Banana Yoshimoto's Lizard story collection was so terrible I didn't come close to finishing it.)

A book you'd want on a desert island: Honestly, I'd want one called How to Get Off This Island Without Losing Any Limbs or Sanity, and Without Subsequently Requiring Surgery (such as for Skin Cancer): The Secrets of Safe Escape. But I suppose something long that would complement sun-baked hallucinations would go over nicely, like Don Quixote or Moby-Dick or maybe even John Ashbery's Flow Chart.

A book that made you cry: The Dream Songs by John Berryman. As I'm pretty stoical when reading, that probably had to do more with my psychological state at the time than Berryman's work, though it is emotional (despite a mostly impenetrable style) and Berryman did commit suicide about 20 minutes from here, so there's always his personal story hanging over the work.

A book that made you laugh: Hmmm. Saratoga Hexameter by Stephen Dobyns. I also enjoyed a great deal two other Saratoga mysteries: Saratoga Fleshpot and Saratoga Haunting.

-cK