James Salter - All That Is

Well, shoot.  I am only three chapters in, and already I am ready to declare that, line for line, All That Is contains the finest writing by an American novelist in many years.  Consider, for example, the book's opening:

All night in darkness the water sped past.

In tier on tier of iron bunks below deck, silent, six deep, lay hundreds of men, many faceup with their eyes still open though it was near morning.  The lights were dimmed, the engines throbbing endlessly, the ventilators pulling in damp air, fifteen hundred men with their packs and weapons heavy enough to take them straight to the bottom, like an anvil dropped in the sea, part of a vast army sailing twoards Okinawa, the great island that was just to the south of Japan.

But there is more to a great novel than great writing.  Can Salter make the grade in this, his first novel since 1979? 

I'm optimistic.

Review: The New Yorker Fiction Podcasts

On a whim, I started downloading the free New Yorker Fiction Podcasts available from the iTunes store. I was skeptical at first because my impressions of New Yorker fiction have always been somewhat negative; my impression was that they were always too impressed with themselves or too urban (read: about NYC) to consistently appeal to someone living outside of the big apple. And there are certainly some stories like this here: James McCourt’s depiction of a cinematic femme fatale in “Avenged” was to my eye overwritten and boring. But I have to eat some crow here: I was completely mistaken. Most of the stories are not only really entertaining, but cover a wide range of fiction: you can hear stories from such notables as Jamaica Kincaid, Denis Johnson, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alice Monroe, James Salter, Roberto Bolaño, and Donald Bartheleme. I’ve also been introduced to some writers that I had never heard of before: two of Stephanie Vaughn’s excellent tales about a military family stationed in Fort Niagara and - my favorite one so far - Stewart Dybek's hypnotic Russian-doll of a story called "Paper Lantern."

The podcasts are hosted by the fiction editor of the New Yorker, Deborah Treisman, who sets the scene by introducing and interviewing  the narrator for a few minutes before (s)he reads any story of their choosing from The New Yorker archives. After the presentation then the two of them discuss and analyze the story. For non-professional narrators, the stories are almost always engaging, and their insights into the stories both thoughtful and enlightening. My favorite reader so far is either Salman Rushdie’s pitch-perfect take on Donald Barthelme’s “Consider the Bodyguard,” a difficult tale composed entirely of questions, or Orhan Pamuk’s rich Slavic baritone narration of Vladimir Nabokov’s “My Russian Education.” Some of the parings don't seem to match at first, like Allegra Goodman's bubbly voice reading the very-male narration of John Updike's "A&P" or Anne Enright's thick Irish brogue presenting  John Cheever's very American "The Swimmer," but in both cases the narrator won me over in the end. I'm not sure why this is - it might be that since the narrators are all authors themselves, their love of the words carries over into the recording. All I know is that I've been really enjoying them and plan on checking out the entire series. Next up: David Means reading Raymond Carver's "Chef's House."

Related Posts:
Running with Podcasts
Cross Posted on Thought Ambience

Running with Podcasts

Do you remember what the Internet was like in 2004?  America was evenly split between those who used broadband and those who still "dialed up."  Facebook was still just a bunch of Harvard students.  YouTube didn't even exist. 

But there was this brand-spanking new technology called . . . podcasting.

I remember in those early days, scouring the web for interesting podcasts.  At some point, though, my interest died, and for years, the thought of listening to podcasts never flitted through my mind. Until last weekend.  I was headed out for a long run (2-1/4 hours) and I wanted something to listen to.  But I was tired of the same music over and over.  Somehow, I started looking for podcasts.  Once my iPod was loaded up, I hit the road. 

After an hour of boning up on some current events, I switched over to The New Yorker's fiction podcasts.  Holy crap!  The New Yorker has a huge archive of short stories that been published in the magazine at some point in the past, being read by other famous authors.  Now  normally, I'd rather read a story myself than hear someone else read it, but what a way to pass the time when you've settled into a long-distance pace.  My favorite was listening to Ben Marcus read "A Village After Dark," an older story by Kazuo Ishiguro.  Just outstanding.  I also very much enjoyed David Means reading "Chef's House" by Raymond Carver. 

On future runs, I am looking forward to hearing some short stories by Denis Johnson, James Salter, John O'Hara, and perhaps even some authors I am not yet familiar with.

Do you listen to anything other than music on your runs?  If so, what do you enjoy?

Related posts:
Running and Listening to Music

Happy Birthday!

"I'm sorry to miss your birthday."

"Forty-four," he said.  "I'm afraid I'm beginning to look it."

"The easy part is over."

"It was easy?"

"We're entering the underground river," she said.  "Do you know what I mean?"

"Yes, I know."

"It's ahead of us.  All I can tell you is, not even courage will help."

  --from Light Years, by James Salter

Congratulations, Todd!  One year closer to the river!

Related posts:

Salter and Class

Review: Light Years (James Salter)

Salter and Class

Like Joel, i've been reading some James Salter recently, specifically his short story collection Dusk and Other Stoires. While I like the authority of his voice (who was it that said that people will believe anything you say as long as you say it with confidence), I find it hard to identify with his stories because of it's tone and subject. First of all, he mainly writes about affluent upper-class people, people that ride horses and go beaching, which is fine in and of itself but he combines it with an arrogance that is offputting. The ending of "American Express" is a particularly good example of this attitude: "His life was simple. The air was pure and cool. He was part of that great, unchanging order of those who live by wages, whose world is unlit and who do not realize what is above." (p. 46) It's an attitude that’s a bit shocking to hear spelled out so bluntly, since I don’t believe Salter is being ironic. No, I don’t see him paying any attention to "wage earners" in these stories; sure, there are glimpses of them – servants in the other room, waiters across the restaurant – but these characters are typically constructed with no empathy or authority. Pronouncements like this feel like they should be ironic, but instead they come off as making me feel dirty. Another example comes in "Via Negativea" story, which depicts a failed writer whose girl leaves him for a more successful one and thus the details of her life became "...part of an immersion into the flow of a great life."

It’s the smaller details that Salter feels necessary to include that really bug me. It's not enough that the characters fail - no, the horribly bad teeth of the failed writer or the lonely woman in "Dusk" standing next to a "Prime Meats" sign feel like Salter is being needlessly cruel by piling on. The one exception to this trend is Fenn, the main character in "Akhnilo" who is stifled by his life and the hallucinogenic way in which this is revealed to him and his family. The story powerfully depicts not only how Fenn’s situation could have come about but also how he could arrive in such a state that the bizarre things that happen to him in this story make sense. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this story is the only one (as far as I can tell) where the main character is a blue-collar person.

I am going to try reading him again - I have a copy of A Sport and a Pastime which I'm hoping to see why his sexual writing is so acclaimed - but so far i'm just not that impressed.