Tag Archives: literature

An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland by Michael Dirda (2003) – BR00035 (2007) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
May 3 2007

Plot or Premise

The author is a book reviewer for the Washington Post; this is the story of his life up until graduation from university.

What I Liked

Dirda was recommended to me by a colleague from work, whose appetites for reading are far more literary than mine. He actually recommended Bound to Please, which is a collection of Dirda’s reviews of more literary prose from throughout history, but I tripped over this book first. I’m quite glad I did as I probably won’t read the collection of essays until I’ve read most of the tomes reviewed, but An Open Book is a fantastic autobiography.

It reads in some place like Angela’s Ashes without the darkness of Irish poverty. However, it is not without conflict or family dysfunction during the author’s childhood, and he tells the story in places with openness and unashamed personal bias.

The main part of the story recounts Dirda’s intellectual progress as he moved through comic strips from the newspaper (p.49), pun and joke books (everyone sing: “great green gobs of greasy grimy gopher guts”!), the TAB book club (p.66), the Hardy Boys and Tom Swift series (p.90), a brief stint with romance novels (p.201), and the importance of great literature to challenging society and even changing history (p.290). It also includes his non-literary education – playing with BB guns (p.81), understanding firsthand how hard his father’s job was (p.185), learning about art and music (p.267), the ceasing to care about grades when writing essays and the corresponding improvements in marks (p.310), the contribution of early influences in his life to later character traits (p.320), and looking back at one’s life (p.321).

The book recounts his life relatively linearly in time, yet with lots of interesting digressions that veer away from developments in his personal life and situation with the book he was reading at the time.

What I Didn’t Like

It would have been interesting to see more of the reactions from teachers throughout the author’s life, including perhaps even tracking some of them down. It is hard to imagine exactly how certain ones would have reacted to his precocious reading of more advanced novels, and the existing allusions to some of their reactions are rudimentary at best. As well, the final decision (to become a freelance journalist upon leaving university) is rushed in the story and negates much of the relaxed pace to that point.

The Bottom Line

See the early influences on a literary book reviewer.

Biblioholism: The Literary Addiction by Tom Raabe (1996) – BR00013 (2001) – 🐸🐸⚪⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 18 2001

Plot or Premise

A mixed-tone argument that you can be “addicted” to reading and owning books, with some examples of book hoarders from years-gone-by.

What I Liked

There are some really good “humour” lists, kind of like a Letterman top ten list for:

  • Moving when you have a lot of books;
  • A Biblioholic’s test (how big is your problem);
  • The snobbish Discovery Index (I knew the author when..);
  • Reading in restaurants;
  • Latin explanations of literary taste: “De gustibus non est disputandum” — Everyone to their own non-disputable tastes; and,
  • Ten Commandments for the Book Handler.

What I Didn’t Like

The author can’t seem to decide what the book is — a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek ode to book hoarders everywhere or a serious tome about an actual mental illness. The book starts out with a light-hearted look at those who feel an overwhelming urge to buy books i.e., “biblioholics”. By the end, however, he treats it like a real mental illness that requires awareness and treatment. Either approach could work, but bouncing between one and the other wears out really fast. Perhaps this would have been better as a collection of small articles for a small newspaper, and even then, in dire need of an editor to give it better focus and less repetition. But even in a series of newspaper articles, I suspect the reader would tire of the subject matter very quickly — the metaphor is dragged out far past its prime.

The Bottom Line

Well-researched but yawn.

Ruined by Reading: A life in books by Lynne Sharon Schwartz (1996) – BR00010 (2001) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
February 18 2001

Plot or Premise

Schwarz starts with a commentary by a Chinese scholar that some people are handicapped by reading too much, and not thinking enough about what they read. From there, she looks at the books she has read in her life and the role they have played. It is not a heavy analytical tone throughout, but rather a personal commentary on the books that have been important to her in her life, and the elements of her life that took place in and around books.

What I Liked

There are a number of sections that are quite well done, such as:

  • Emptying your mind for meditation vs. filling it up during a life spent reading (pg. 14);
  • On the un-importance of the authors vs. the impact of the words themselves (pg. 17);
  • A life spent reading (pg. 96);
  • Choices of reading material (pg. 107);
  • Ruined by reading (pg. 114); and,
  • On self (pg. 119).

What I Didn’t Like

Some of the sections could have benefited from a bit more analysis and historical context, not just the personal impact on her own life.

The Bottom Line

The tone was pleasant, but not a serious work.