No Pictures: Philip Roth Is A Perfect Beach Read If You're Going To A Beach That's Totally Old And Horny

The Humbling
By Philip Roth, 2009

File this one next to Portnoy's Complaint and Sabbath's Theater, as its part of Phil's "randy dudes" series. Oh sure, there's parts of it where Roth aims towards writing about something other than the time a depressed old man got his withered old fuck on, a tale about what it might mean when one loses mastery over ones art after a lifetime spent earning it, but Roth's primary commitment this time around is clearly decided, whether or not he wanted it to be: "to bang or not to bang, oh a threesome? Fuck yeah i'm totally in. As with the other book's in this portion of Roth's catalog, there's a curiosity factor--is that how the author himself picks up the extra bed partners? Slumming on drunk shopgirls in the antique hunting part of town?--but mostly you just slide through the whole experience. This dude can still write, it's just that you wish he had something to write about.

Illmatic
By Matthew Gasteier, 2009

Yeah, what? Maybe it's just being spoiled by Wikipedia or free articles from Seymour Hersh, but this book felt like it should've been published as a fanzine, and I don't mean like Cometbus or any fanzine that anyone refers to as "interesting". This was just baby's first Nas book. The 33 1/3 series is so much more impressive when you don't read any of them.

Under The Dome
By Stephen King, 2009

The thing that Stephen King has most in common with Jackson Pollack is that a lot of people respond negatively to their work by saying "anybody could do that", and while they're usually wrong, Under The Dome probably comes closest to them being right as anything I've ever read by the guy. (His worst book is probably still Dreamcatcher, yet Dreamcatcher is so fucking strange and, by the end, essentially unreadable, and that novelty guarantees it some kind of special title.) Under The Dome is still compulsive in the way these sorts of world-building fantasy-ish books are, even when you can tell 15 pages out that the survival prospects aren't looking good for the wise old cop who serves as sanity's local linchpin, but it's only King's oddball mix of hokum and faux-Americana touches that keep this book from reading like the million and one slush pile books that the world's hopefuls continue to produce.

You Don't Love Me Yet
By Jonathan Lethem, 2007

I know a lot of people who have read and loved Motherless Brooklyn, a few who have read and loved Fortress of Solitude, a couple who dug Chronic City, but I've never met anyone who finished You Don't Love Me Yet, and now I know why: this one was a total misfire. Like reading the lyric sheets to a Matthew Sweet album while a father of two teenage girls tells you about all the times when they sing Mates of State songs, this is a book best left forgotten.

Fences and Windows
By Naomi Klein, 2002

This book is probably a good indication of the future of print, in that it's a collection of undercooked essays and poorly thought out jeremiads (trust me, I can smell these kinds of things) previously published somewhere else. There's some attempt to make the work look less date-stamped than it is, as well as a lazy jab towards making its Frankenstein-ian qualities resemble a cogent narrative, but you're never going to forget that you're reading something that probably worked better somewhere else, before.

Homebody/Kabul
By Tony Kushner, 2002

Kind of weird timing to dig this one out again, and probably a mistake to do so, as it hasn't aged well. Reading plays probably isn't high up on many people's list of a relaxing pastime; at least, it isn't mine, and there's probably no weaker section in a bookstore than the one dedicated to theater. (With the obvious exception of dance, which often combines the sensitivity of the artist with the intensely athletic physique that invariably escapes those most likely to call themselves "creative".) And make no mistake: I probably still read plays primarily because an attractive young woman once approached me and said "you must be very serious" because I was reading a bunch of Christopher Durang plays. (The irony that Durang's plays are almost completely unserious does not escape me, but as the only reason for mentioning this whimsical anecdote is to imply that I was picked up for sex with a stranger, which I was, which is why the idea in my head of "read plays, people will fuck you" has stayed in my brain, despite the obvious fact that this young lady was definitely uninterested in plays or whether I was "serious", and for some reason interested in me, or at least what I represented, which in that little town could've been any number of things, although I'm most likely to lean towards "not fat" as that was the biggest problem being faced at that time in rural Northeast Georgia, which was where I went to college and did most of my playreading, although it is of course possible (while unlikely) that she knew Durang's work and assumed that anyone reading the collected short works of a known New York homosexual playwright would certainly be amenable to what pop culture refers to as a one-night stand, which this of course was, although I believe we parted on excellent terms as there was never any mention or pretense towards getting one another's number, and while I obviously no longer regret not having done so as I am happily married to a woman I quite prefer in all the categories available to muster judgments in, I will not deny that I don't often question how I managed to play a situation as cool as I admittedly did, as I can point to no other time when I so easily handled myself, with the obvious exception of how I broke up with my high school girlfriend, which is a story that I will save for a later time, possibly after I read an Arthur Miller play, who I still like even if everyone else doesn't.

The Dramatic Imagination
By Robert Edmond Jones, 1941

I don't have a book I read every year, the way Anthony Lane reads Day of the Jackal. But if I did, it might be this one. The subject material interests me less and less as time goes by, but the way the guy's mind moves, the way he's able to mix class and homespun idealism into a sort of weird manifesto for artistic creation and a well-mannered approach to living never seems precious or affected. There's so much value to be found when an artist just describes why they do what they do and why they love it.

The Looking Glass War
By John Le Carre, 1965

This is one boring slog of a spy novel, one that takes forever to get to its one, final, brutally simple satirical point. It was actually planned this way, so one has to acknowledge and give credit to it for that. Le Carre wanted to say goodbye to his marriage, his past, and he wanted to say fuck you to the people he used to work for, and so he did so, successfully, in this book. Here's the thing: he's so successful at achieving his goals that you'll have to exert some real effort to ride it all the way to the non-shattering and totally unsurprising conclusion, which is also delivered in an on-purpose unsatisfying fashion. Interested?

-Tucker Stone, 2011

 

Comments

[Matt Seneca]

well i read a Tony Kushner play in a hipster coffee shop this very day and didn't even get approached by the barista when my tea ran out, so you must just be hella attractive

[Chris Jones]

Tucker, did you like "Absolute Friends", if you've read it?

[Tim O'Neil]

If you're going to sit in public and read plays, then you really should just go balls deep and read something written in ancient Greek or perhaps something from the Renaissance written in another language. Reading contemporary theater is like saying, "I try to be complex, but really, I just like books with the minimal amount of words possible."

Check and mate.

[David Allison]

Re: You Don't Love Me Yet, I finished the fucker, filed it under "randy indie dudes" and forgot all about it. Until now.

Don't worry though, I'll still let you shake my hand if we ever meet.

[Dan Mazur]

While I enjoyed reading you trash (mostly) books I haven't ever read, I have to say I disagreed with you on the one book on your list I HAVE read: The Looking Glass War. I read it a long time ago (after 2-3 other Le Carres) so I don't remember it that well, but at the time I thought it's cold-blooded, step-by-step procedural of an operation that was totally misconceived, based on a false premise, and motivated by a desire to re-fight the last war, was brilliant and tragic. And that was BEFORE the war in Iraq!

Otherwise, I enjoy your rip-aparts of comics, a lot!

[Jog]

It was so hot in my hipster coffee shop today the barista took off his fedora. TRUE TALES.

[Richard Baez]

a. I quite like Lethem, but, man, did Greil Marcus steer me wrong with YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET.

b. Wow. That may be the only time I've ever seen the term "successor" used on a book cover. The past is indeed a different country - one with better book designs.

[Dave]

I read the complete works of Sara Kane a while back because it took about 13 years for Blasted to even get performed in NYC, but it made Crave almost impossible to understand.

[John K(UK)]

Gotta say, I'm more inclined to consider King's worst book to be INSOMNIA. Eeeeeew! Mind you, I think THE (four original)BACHMAN BOOKS are his best work. That's no joke either despite the fact that people have laughed right up in my face for saying so. The dirty birds!

UNDER THE DOME was okay, I just wanted it to be over a lot sooner than it was. Say now, if anyone does ever intend invading America they would do well to target all the small town diners first. Judging by popular culture there's a whole load of bad asses whupping up grits back in those kitchens.(I don't know what grits are.)

Women shun my touch even though I follow them around declaiming from Oleanna by David Mamet. Their loss.

Out of all those books the only one I've read is by Stephen King. Excuse me, I need to go have a talk with myself.

Thanks for the reviews!

[Tim O'Neil]

I second THE BACHMAN BOOKS. Too bad they can never all be reprinted again like that. It's not as if RAGE is the best book ever written, but the four of them really compliment each other in some strange fashion.

But that just goes to prove something that pretty much everyone already knows: King gets progressively better with fewer pages. His novellas are usually great and his short stories are spectacular. His long novels . . . not so much.

[tucker]

Yeah, Bachman was pretty great. I wish I still had my old copy of that--the copy with all those skulls on the cover? Such a cool looking book.

Insomnia is pretty horrible, but it's at least imaginative at points. Under the Dome is way more compelling, but it still reads like a book that could've been produced by a late night brainstorm session by a team of Simcity fans.