NYPL Blogs: Reader’s Den

Reader's Den: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner - Week 2

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Wed, 22 May 2013 09:35:48 -0400

Welcome back to our online discussion of Will Eisner's The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Avenue. Throughout May, we'll be discussing the book as part of both Reader's Den and NYC Summer.

Below is our schedule, but please feel free to comment on any post over the course of the month:

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: A Contract With God (p. 3-180)
Week 3: A Life Force (p. 181-322)
Week 4: Dropsie Avenue (p. 323-498)

Last week, we talked about Will Eisner, The Spirit, and the Eisner Awards. We now turn to the first book in the trilogy, A Contract With God and Other Tenement Stories, which was originally published in 1978, and is made up four stories: "A Contract With God", "The Street Singer", "The Super", and "Cookalein".

"A Contract With God" immediately grabbed me with its tale of the dark descent of Frimme Hersh, from beloved orphan in the poor Jewish community of Piske to ruthless New York City landlord who dies at the very moment he has attained peace. I particularly liked the ambiguity of the narrative: one could interpret his heart attack (and subsequent fire) as either divine retribution or senseless tragedy. Also, Hersh's loss of faith after the death of his daughter takes on a new resonance in light of the fact that Eisner began the book shortly after he lost his own sixteen-year-old daughter to leukemia.

While the first story offers a sad, but almost classic arc of failed redemption, "The Street Singer" and "The Super" seem to venture into even bleaker territory and seem particularly grounded in the reality of the Bronx during the Great Depression. In the former, we have the rather unsympathetic street singer protagonist, Eddie, who is drawn as a violent, lost man who glimpses a brighter future only to forget the address of the opera singer who is his ticket to fame. The latter is interesting in that it initially presents Mr. Scagg as a racist and sexually deviant cartoon of a man, only to later paint him as a rather heartbreaking character, after his dog is poisoned and he is driven to suicide.

Lastly, "Cookalein" manages to capture that ineffable feeling of freedom in escaping the city during the summer. In my mind, it seems to combine the universal aspect of "A Contract With God" with the raw, messy observatons of life found in both "The Street Singer" and "The Super". This final story presents an archetypal "loss of innocence" story through the character of Willie, while not shying away from the sexuality and violence that accompanies it.

Some discussion questions:

Which was your favorite of the four stories? Why were you drawn to that one in particular?
Did you find the characters, like Frimme Hersh and Mr. Scaff, sympathetic despite their obvious character flaws?
Do these four stories feel modern to you or do they feel tied specifically to New York City in the 1930s?

Reader's Den: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner - Week 1

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Fri, 10 May 2013 06:28:17 -0400

For this month's Reader's Den, we'll be hosting an online book discussion of Will Eisner's The Contract With God Trilogy: Life on Dropsie Aveue. This is only the second time we have featured a graphic novel (the first was Joe Sacco's Palestine in October 2010).

However, as part of NYC Summer, we have two more graphic novel discussions coming up: Alan Moore's The Watchmen in July and Leela Corman's Unterzakhn in September! Please visit bit.ly/nycsummer-nypl for the full schedule.

If you need a copy of the book, you can request The Contract With God Trilogy through the NYPL catalog. This compilation (published by W.W. Norton & Company in 2006) consists of three different works: A Contract With God (1978), A Life Force (1983), and Dropsie Avenue: The Neighborhood (1995).

To give us a loose structure for the discussion, I've listed a schedule below, but please feel free to comment on any of the four postings throughout May.

Week 1: Introduction
Week 2: A Contract With God (p. 3 - 180)
Week 3: A Life Force (p. 181 - 322)
Week 4: Dropsie Avenue (p. 323 - 498)

Will Eisner, for many readers, is synonymous with the annual Eisner Awards, which were established in 1988 after the discontinuation of Fantagraphics' Jack Kirby Awards in 1987. The nominees for 2013 were recently announced and this year's winners will be revealed on July 19 at Comic-con International in San Diego.

A Contract With God is sometimes referred to as the "first graphic novel". However, most critics agree that this title most likely belongs to either Gil Kane and Archie Goodwin's Blackmark (1971), Richard Corben's Bloodstar (1976), or George Metzger's Beyond Time and Again (1967-1972). Interestingly, Will Eisner has stated that he originally thought that he had invented the term in a shrewd attempt to gain an audience with the president of Bantam Books, before learning of these earlier works.

Another point of interest is the book's many ties to New York City. Eisner was born in Brooklyn, attended DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. and later taught cartooning at School of Visual Arts. All three stories in this compilation are set in the apartments and surrounding blocks of 55 Dropsie Avenue, a fictional tenemant building inhabited by Dutch, Irish, Italian, and Jewish immigrants in the Bronx.

Lastly, Eisner is also well-known as creator of The Spirit, a masked crimefighter who first appeared in a self-titled newspaper serial in 1940, was later revived in 2006 with a Batman/Spirit crossover by Jeph Loeb and Darwyn Cooke as well as an ongoing series by Cooke, and most recently appeared in the DC Comics First Wave limited series written by Brian Azzarello and spin-off ongoing series in 2010. The Spirit was also adapted in the hyper-stylized, but poorly-received movie by Frank Miller in 2008.

Below are some general questions to get us started:

Are you familiar with Will Eisner? Have you read any Eisner Award-winning graphic novels?
Have you come across any versions of The Spirit mentioned above or seen the Frank Miller film? If so, what did you think?
How does The Contract With God Trilogy compare to other graphic novels you've read, on first glance?

NYC Summer: Programs at Mid-Manhattan

Thomas Knowlton, Mid-Manhattan Library, Language and Literature — Mon, 06 May 2013 06:51:14 -0400

This summer at Mid-Manhattan Library: revisit the vital, gritty streets of 1970s New York City on Film, discuss great NYC books online with Reader's Den, and relax as librarian Lois Moore reads you short stories from The New Yorker and New York-based authors during Mixed Bag.

All of these events are part of our summer reading program for older teens and adults called NYC Summer. Watch this space for announcements of even more events and book recommendations! You can also quickly access this page at: bit.ly/nycsummer-nypl.

From June to August, we will be hosting 1970s New York City on Film, featuring a variety of movies shot on location in NYC. Each program includes an introduction to the film as well as a guided discussion afterwards.

DATE FILM YEAR TIME DIRECTOR June 5, 2013 Shaft 1971 100 min Gordon Parks June 12, 2013 Klute 1971 114 min Alan J. Pakula June 19, 2013 Super Fly 1972 93 min Gordon Parks, Jr. June 26, 2013 The Godfather 1972 175 min Francis Ford Coppola July 3, 2013 Across 110th Street 1972 102 min Barry Shear July 10, 2013 Serpico 1973 130 min Sidney Lumet July 24, 2013 Mean Streets 1973 112 min Martin Scorsese July 31, 2013 Three Days of the Condor 1975 117 min Sydney Pollack August 7, 2013 Network 1976 121 min Sidney Lumet August 14, 2013 Saturday Night Fever 1977 118 min John Badham August 21, 2013 The Warriors 1979 92 min Walter Hill

All film screenings listed above are FREE and held in the first floor corner room of Mid-Manhattan Library. Seating is first-come, first-served.

Still from Serpico directed by Sidney Lumet.

Reader's Den is a monthly, online book discussion led by NYPL's resident bibliophiles. As part of NYC Summer, all books are related to New York City.

MONTH TITLE AUTHOR DISCUSSIONS May The Contract With God Trilogy Will Eisner 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Jun Time and Again Jack Finney 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Jul Watchmen Alan Moore 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Aug Slaves of New York Tama Janowitz 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 Sept Unterzakhn Leela Corman 1 | 2 | 3 | 4

Request the book (or ebook) from the NYPL catalog and join us once a week for an online discussion of the current month's selection.

Image by Anthony Catalano and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Love a good story? Sit back and relax during Mixed Bag as storyteller extraordinaire Lois Moore reads you a story or two at lunch or dinner time!

JULY Mon July 15, 2013 New York, New York: Stories From The New Yorker 7 p.m. Wed July 17, 2013 New York, New York: Stories From The New Yorker 1 p.m. Wed July 24, 2013 New York, New York: Stories From The New Yorker 1 p.m. Mon July 29, 2013 New York, New York: Stories From The New Yorker 7 p.m. AUGUST Wed August 7, 2013 New York, New York: New York Authors 1 p.m. Mon August 12, 2013 New York, New York: New York Authors 7 p.m. Wed August 21, 2013 New York, New York: New York Authors 1 p.m. Mon August 26, 2013 New York, New York: New York Authors 7 p.m.

Image by Anthony Catalano and licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

Reader's Den: A Visit from the Goon Squad - Week 4

Melissa Scheurer, Mid-Manhattan Library — Thu, 02 May 2013 07:23:04 -0400

Well, here we are past the end of April and that means it's my final post for A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Even though the Reader's Den will be moving on to a new book in May, you can always read previous posts and comment on them.

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Post 1

A Visit from the Goon Squad - Post 2

My perception of Time is that it passes by while I'm worrying about what I have to do next and then before I know it, it's gone. It's difficult to stay focused on the present, but I am making an effort to force myself to stop and be in the moment. It's cliche but sometimes it just means I acknowledge my happiness at the sight of the pink flowers that bloom on the trees on my block. I'm not even sure what they are... dogwoods maybe?

I did not necessarily relate to the characters in terms of their specific life experiences, but I felt connected to them nonetheless. Some readers posted online reviews with charts and diagrams to help keep track of how and when each of the characters intersected but that aspect of the book didn't appeal to me. What struck a chord with me was the range of emotion the characters displayed. Love, sadness, confusion, bitterness, shame, pride, hope, forgiveness—it's all there. Another book I enjoyed with loosely connected characters was The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman.

I was intrigued by the PowerPoint chapter. Was it just a gimmick or a clever technique? I'm leaning toward clever. The technique conveyed a couple of ideas to me.

It's much harder to describe a concept using very few words. I took an open book exam in college where we could use no more than two lines to answer each question. It sounds easier than it was.

Sometimes a change in perspective can make all the difference in understanding something. That's how I felt reading the Power Point chapter. Egan's ability to capture the essence of a complicated father-son relationship with one flowchart reminded me that sometimes less is more, or at least enough.

That idea surfaced again in the final chapter where we meet many of the characters again in a not-too-distant future setting. "Lulu was in her early twenties, a graduate student at Barnard and Bennie's full-time assistant: a living embodiment of the new "handset employee": paperless, deskless, commuteless, and theoretically omnipresent..." (p. 257).

While the idea of using handsets to communicate during face-to-face encounters might be troubling, the conventions of the handset language, e.g. using a capital letter to denote a long vowel sound, were interesting from a linguistics perspective.

Did you have a favorite character or a favorite chapter?

Reader's Den: A Visit From the Goon Squad - Week 3

Melissa Scheurer, Mid-Manhattan Library — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 06:44:39 -0400

Welcome back to the Reader’s Den. In the early chapters of A Visit from the Goon Squad we meet Bennie Salazar. In his middle age Bennie is divorced, has a son and works as a record company executive. But Bennie fondly remembers his days playing bass in a punk rock band.

While Bennie and his bandmates are fictional, the bands they listened to made real music. You can borrow punk rock music CDs by the Dead Kennedys, the Sex Pistols, the Ramones, the Clash and Blondie.

For more music featured in the book, check out the website, Small Demons. It’s a neat site that connects books, music, people, places and events. You can even listen to a preview of the songs.

The punk movement was more than just the music. Art, fashion, film and books all played a part in defining the subculture. In New York, the magazine Punk helped bring all the aspects together. The Best of Punk Magazine, an anthology of interviews, photos, cartoons, articles and more from the magazine recently hit the stands. Reserve your copy today!

Enough about the music. Let's talk about the book.

Redemption seems to be a theme. Do any of the characters seek it? Do they find it?

Did you like or dislike the structure of the book? How did the shifting perspectives affect your perception of the characters?

"This is reality, right? You don't look good anymore twenty years later, especially with half your guts removed. Time's a goon, right?" says Bosco (p. 96). Do you think the characters perceive Time the same way?

Looking forward to reading your comments!

Reader's Den: A Visit From the Goon Squad - Week 1

Melissa Scheurer, Mid-Manhattan Library — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:26:38 -0400

Hello readers. This month the Reader's Den is reading A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan.

Titles and cover images often give readers a clue as to what lies within a book but I admit I was baffled about this one.

A guitar and a goon squad? It didn't make sense. On the other hand, A Visit from the Good Squad was awarded a Pulitzer Prize (2011) and a National Book Critics Circle Award (2010). Plus, it was always checked out. I thought maybe I should give it a chance.

When I choose a book, I tend to go for a mystery. I enjoy solving puzzles. I'm comfortable with a beginning, middle and end. This book, however, does not present the story in a linear fashion. It could be described as a collection of short stories connected by characters. Each chapter is from a different character's point of view. Over the course of the chapters, we meet characters at different times in their lives in settings that range from New York to Italy to Africa.

Even though this book seemed to be outside my comfort zone, I took I chance on it. I'm glad I did and I hope you will be too.

Reserve a copy today to pick up at your local branch or download the e-book or e-audiobook.

Check back next week for another post, but leave your comments anytime.

Reader's Den: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner Wrap up

Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan Library, Art and Picture Collections — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 07:06:27 -0400

I hope you have enjoyed reading Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. Listed below are suggestions of novels, poetry and non-fiction that might also be of interest to you.

The Tennis-Court Oath by John Ashbery (1957)
Contains poem Leaving the Atocha Station
The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rainer Maria Rilke (1910)
another novel by a poet
Angle of Yaw by Ben Lerner (2006)
a book of poetry from the author of Leaving the Atocha Station
Selected Poems by Frederico Garcia Lorca (2010)
Spanish poet assassinated during the Spanish Civil War
Criminal Ingenuity by Ellen Levy (2011)
for more on Ashbery and the dynamic between art and poetry. Also visit Prudence Peiffer's review of the book in her article, "Free Agents," in the Nov. 2012 issue of Artforum magazine, which names Leaving the Atocha Station as an "excellent novel."
Great Painting: The World's Masterpieces Explored And Explained (2011)
The Rothko Chapel: Writings On Art And The Threshold Of The Divine by Dominique de Menil (2010)
More on transcendent art.
Here and Now: Poems by Stephen Dunn (2011)
From the poem Landscape and Soul (pg 82)

"...I find myself
conjuring Breugel-like peasants cavorting
under a Magritte-like sky – a landscape,
I think, the soul if fully awake might love."

Although it is a completely individual experience, if you'd like to try conjuring transcendent experience with art, here are a few suggestions in New York City:

at the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Approaching Thunder Storm by Martin Johnson Heade
Joan of Arc by Jules Bastien-Lapage
The Crucifixion; The Last Judgment by Jan Van Eyck and Workshop Assistant
Eternal Spring by Auguste Rodin
Monolith and Trees by Thomas Fearnley

at the Museum of Modern Art:

The False Mirror by Rene Magritte
The Street by Balthus

at the Brooklyn Museum:

Battle at Karbala by Abbas Al-Musav
Female Torso

at the The Frick:

St. Francis in the Desert by Giovanni Bellini
Fishing Boats Entering Calais Harbor by Joseph Mallord William Turner

We are already pumped and ready for A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan, next month's Reader's Den selection. The protaganist Sasha, has an uncle who travels to Naples and has an epiphany staring at the sculpture of Orpheus and Eurydice in the Museo Nazionale, "What moved Ted, mashed some delicate glassware in his chest, was the quiet of their interaction, the absence of drama or tears as they gazed at each other, touching gently. He sensed between them an understanding too deep to articulate: the unspeakable knowledge that everything is lost."

It appears that whether or not people have life-changing experiences with art, many of us are open to the possibility.

Reader's Den: Leaving the Atocha Station, Week 3

Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan Library, Art and Picture Collections — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 12:38:19 -0400

Welcome to the third week of reading Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. As you are nearing the end of the novel and as we just passed the anniversary of the terrorist attack on Atocha Station (March 11, 2004), there are a few themes to ask questions about or consider further.

Leaving the Atocha Station provides a glimpse into the everyday experiences of a (post-grad) student abroad. Nothing extraordinary happens to Adam Gordon from day to day. He experiences major themes of literature and life in an average way — alienation, getting lost, self-doubt, but he also tries to imagine his writing having an effect on life. He says "I tried hard to imagine my poems or any poems as machines that could make things happen, changing the government or the economy or even their language, the body or its sensorium, but I could not imagine this, could not even imagine imagining it. And yet when I imagined the total victory of those other things over poetry, when I imagined, with a sinking feeling, a world without even the terrible excuses for poems that kept faith with the virtual possibilities of the medium, without the sort of absurd ritual I'd participated in that evening, then I intuited an estimable loss, a loss not of artworks but of art, and therefore infinite, the total triumph of the actual…"

Does Adam triumph over the actual when he tells lies/stories to his friends in Spain about the events that have/have not happened in his life? His dying mother? The girl drowning in Mexico?

Much of the novel centers on Adam's internal dialogue about the purpose the role of poetry and art in life. In the novel we are asked to think about how art participates in historic events.

When we experience a painting or poem about an event, Guernica by Picasso (during the Spanish Civil War) for example, are we merely an observer, or do we become a participant in the event?

Do you think the terrorist attack at Atocha Station in Madrid in 2004 changes Adam's perception of the significance of historical events?

Why might Adam prefer to be an observer rather than a participant (as in the marches leading up to the election for example)?

Is the actual often a lesser experience than the art that describes it?

He asks at one point in the novel "…that I was a fraud had never been in question — who wasn't".

Does Adam's reaction to the world around him make him easy to identify with?

Is he ordinary?

Why does Adam take drugs?

Ultimately, has Adam's experience in Spain been transcendent?

I'd love to hear further questions and thoughts you had as you read the novel. Join us next week for suggestions for further reading.

Reader's Den: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, Week 2

Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan Library, Art and Picture Collections — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 13:25:39 -0400

The author of Leaving the Atocha Station, Ben Lerner, is originally from Kansas and has a BA in political science and an MFA in creative writing from Brown University. He was a 2003-2004 Fulbright Scholar in Spain and he currently teaches in the English Department at Brooklyn College. Leaving the Atocha Station is Lerner's first novel, but he has several published books of poetry and critical works.

Lerner's early background closely mirrors Adam Gordon's, his main character. It also has some similarities to the path of poet John Ashbery. Ashbery also studied in Europe (Paris) on a Fulbright Scholarship and taught at Brooklyn College. The title, Leaving the Atocha Station, is from an Ashbery poem of the same name, published in 1957.

John Ashbery's writing is known for its sound, or the way the words sound together as they are read. In the novel, Adam uses the sound of a word in the Spanish language to find a replacement in English, "…I looked up the Spanish word for the English word that approximated the sound ("Under the arc of the sky" became "Under the arc of the cielo," which became "Under the arc of the cello.")"

At Adam's first poetry reading in Madrid, where he reads Under the arc of the cello, he is amazed by the performance and the supportive reaction of the crowd to the Spanish poet Tomas' moving reading. He notices everyone seems transcended by the performance, "I looked at Arturo and his face implied he was having a profound experience in art."

Why might the depth of the reaction of the crowd to the reading (Adam's included) surprise Adam?

Do you think Adam is experiencing culture shock?

For further encouragement while reading this month, check out David Shields' How Literature Saved My Life. The prologue ("In which I discuss another book as a way to throw into bold relief what this book is about") summarizes Lerner's novel and Adam's (Lerner's) experience between creating art and participating in reality. Shields writes, "I see a skewed, complex, somewhat tortured stance: an antipathy toward the conventions of the culture and yet a strong need to be in conversation with that culture." (p. 28)

Read an interesting interview with Ben Lerner by Adam Fitzgerald at Bomb Magazine (Sept. 2011). Also, try the New York Times book review by Gary Sernovitz, Lost Generations: What 'Leaving the Atocha Station' Says About America (March 9, 2012).

Reader's Den: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner, Week 1

Jessica Cline, Mid-Manhattan Library, Art and Picture Collections — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 10:07:00 -0500

Welcome to the Reader's Den for March. This month we will be discussing Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner. It is a novel set in Spain, written by a New York author. The novel follows Adam Gordon to Madrid in 2004 on a fellowship to write poetry influenced by the Spanish Civil War. We learn about Adam's relationships as a poet-tourist-student and his process of writing and self-discovery through experiences outside of his control.

Adam awakes in Madrid, Spain, follows his morning routine, and is standing in from of Rogier van der Weyden's Descent from the Cross at the Prado Museum "within forty-five minutes of waking." But, on the morning that begins Leaving the Atocha Station, another man has positioned himself in front of Adam's usual spot, "I was just about to abandon room 58 when the man broke suddenly into tears, convulsively catching his breath. Was he, I wondered, just facing the wall to hide his face as he dealt with whatever grief he'd brought to the museum? Or was he having a profound experience of art?"

Much has been written about the sublime in art and religious transcendence as is expressed through a work of art. I am thinking of works such as Friedrich's Monk by the Sea, Bernini's Ecstasy of Saint Teresa, or Munch's The Scream. But what of the viewer's experience with the art work? Do regular people have truly exceptional experiences with art and how would one know that it happened?

Please join the Reader's Den discussion of the novel. Ask questions, provide insight, or make suggestions on any of the March posts for Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner.

February Reader's Den: "Telegraph Avenue" Week 4

Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market Library — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 06:50:51 -0500

This is a view of Broadway, in Oakland, California from NYPL's Digital Gallery. Although it's not Telegraph Avenue where Oakland and Berkeley intersect, I think it still contributes to envisioning the setting of the novel. How do you envision the area where Telegraph Avenue takes place? Do you think that this picture fits with that idea? That time frame?

In the novel, Gibson Goode builds a mega record store in direct competition with Brokeland Records, a portrayal that many found unrealistic. Do you think this is a plausible real estate deal that might have happened in 2004? Was it consistent with Goode's motivation?

Here are some more questions to get the discussion started, and please remember to join us in March for Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner.

February Reader's Den: "Telegraph Avenue" Week 3

Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market Library — Tue, 19 Feb 2013 11:36:24 -0500

If you're enjoying Telegraph Avenue, here are some suggestions on what to check out next:

Telegraph Avenue Pinterest page, including Candygirl Clark and Strutter movie original artwork by Greg "Stainboy" Reinel.

Read-alikes and watch-alikes:

Marvel Comics' Black Panther, read the character's backstory, including a brief romance with X-Men's Storm!
High Fidelity and How to Be Good by Nick Hornby
Jackie Brown (DVD) and Kill Bill (DVD), or any kung-fu movie
Be Kind, Rewind (DVD) Jack Black and Mos Def star in this comedy about two video store clerks who accidentally erase all of the store's video tapes and must reshoot them all, with no budget whatsoever.
Watching the Detectives (DVD) Cillian Murphy and Lucy Liu star in this madcap romantic comedy that takes place in a video store after hours.
Blaxploitation cinema, especially featuring Melvin Van Peebles, Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Jim Kelly, Pam Grier, and Tamara Dobson

February Reader's Den: "Telegraph Avenue" Week 2 - About the Author

Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market Library — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 07:22:16 -0500

If you'd like to know all about Michael Chabon's prolific publishing history, Contemporary Authors Online has an exhaustive biography of him in our online databases. As I already noted, comics have been a big influence on his work and I surprized to learn that he worked on the screenplay of Edgar Rice Burrough's A Princess of Mars (novelized by Stuart Moore as John Carter: The Movie Novelization).

One small quirk of his personality that I think has been insufficently explored is his preoccupation with parrots. This article gives us some insight into this through quotations of other authors who have influenced Chabon.

As Jennifer Egan (A Visit From the Goon Squad) notes, the novel includes a "a 12-page-long sentence that includes the observations of an escaped parrot." This parrot is known as Fifty-Eight and belongs to Cochise Jones, the sentence in question is the chapter "A Bird of Wide Experience," a lynchpin of the novel. Perhaps Chabon has a preoccupation with parrots, too, since his book The Final Solution also features one, and the cover for Telegraph Avenue is inscribed "© 1973 Learned Parrot Records. All Rights Reserved." This is offset, however, by the writer's energy: "joyful" and "exuberant" are some of the adjectives I've seen thrown around, as well as Jennifer Egan's "Tarantinoesque," which I found difficult to fathom at first and then felt was justified with the many references to Kill Bill and other aspects of his work.

While choosing a Pulitzer Prize winning author for the Reader's Den may seem like a no-brainer, Telegraph Avenue does seem like a first in a lot of ways and possibly a stretch for Chabon, partly due to the writing style, partly to, as Slate notes, "Can a White Author Write Black Characters?" It would seem that the answer is "yes," as Telegraph Avenue has garnered a lot of comparisons to writers like Zadie Smith, or to mystery writers like Richard Price or George Pelecanos, who are able to credibly write characters from a wide variety of racial backgrounds. Other criticisms include that the novel feels more like it was set in the 1960s or 1990s than 2004, when it's supposed to take place. Also, a scene later in the book where Gwen chats with Barack Obama at the Democratic Convention struck many as awkward. Chabon addresses some of these concerns in a Slate article, but for me, one of the takeaways was that he really wanted to write believable female characters in this novel, and I think his portrayal of Gwen and Aviva as midwives is done well.

February Reader's Den: "Telegraph Avenue" Week 1

Jenny Baum, Jefferson Market Library — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 06:42:16 -0500

Welcome back to the Reader's Den! Today we take a slight detour from our focus on New York City to the sunny climes of Northern California. Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue is a fictional place that the NYT book review calls, "a homage to an actual place: the boulevard in Northern California where Oakland — historically an African-American city — aligns with Berkeley, whose bourgeois white inhabitants are, as one character puts it, 'liable to invest all their hope of heaven in the taste of an egg laid in the backyard by a heritage-breed chicken.' (page 287)" Unlike The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which takes place in a New York that is a Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster-inspired metropolis.

Kavalier and Clay happens to be a favorite book of a friend of mine, and I'm sure he's not alone. Chabon is able to elevate comic book references like Galactus or Star Trek imagery to the kind of literary references usually reserved for Greek mythology, such as on page 103, where Titus "scooped up a handful of planets, tumbled them between his fingers, let them splash chiming back into the dish." Both novels are similar in their slavering devotion to childhood pastimes (similar, here too, to his children's book, Summertime), although I've read some blog reviews of Telegraph Avenue that fault it for being too overwrought with verbiage. However, I feel like the elaborate descriptions help to set the scene for characters who know the condition and grade of every vinyl record that passes through their hands and every obscure fact about every artist.

The main characters of Telegraph Avenue, Archy Stallings and Nat Jaffe are: "a league of solitary men united in their pursuit of the lost glories of a vanished world" much as comic book store or video store employees (or librarians!) are united in their preservation of artifacts from the past. They are a father-son duo, a family unit that Chabon has also visited in Wonder Boys, although they are not literally father and son. Archy's father, Luther Stallings, is a fallen blaxploitation star whose absenteeism rebounds in Archy's personal life when he finds out that his girlfriend, Gwen, is pregnant. The plot involves myriad other characters and twists and turns and I'm looking forward to seeing what the Reader's Den participants think about it in the comments below.

The Reader's Den: Edith Wharton's "Roman Fever"

Corinne Neary, Jefferson Market Library — Tue, 22 Jan 2013 08:02:09 -0500

Thank you for joining us for our final week of Edith Wharton short stories in The Reader's Den!

Like "The Other Two" and "Autres Temps," Wharton's 1934 story, "Roman Fever" deals with its characters' perceptions of themselves and others, and their attitudes towards the past.

Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley have been friends and rivals for years, living across East 73rd Street from each other. Brought together in Rome with their daughters, and looking out over a view of the Roman Forum, the two widows fall to reminiscing about the time they spent in Rome as young women, shortly before their marriages. Before long, the friendly talk takes a dark turn, and secrets long kept are revealed.

As their daughters leave them for the afternoon, to rendezvous with the young Italian men they have met, Mrs. Ansley says, "The new system has certainly given us a good deal of time to kill; and sometimes I get tired just looking — even at this." What does she mean by 'the new system,' and why has it left them as bystanders?

Mrs. Slade envies Mrs. Ansley, but takes a condescending attitude towards her friend, thinking of herself as the social superior, whereas Mrs. Ansley she sees as hopelessly respectable, irreproachable, and a "museum specimen" of old New York. Do you think Mrs. Slade just sees what she wants to see in Mrs. Ansley?

Mrs. Ansley, on the other hand, feels sorry for Mrs. Slade. Wharton writes that the two view each other, "each through the wrong end of her little telescope." Have their conceptions of each other blinded them to the realities of their personalities?

Why does Mrs. Slade decide, after all these years, to confess that she wrote the letter that was sent to Mrs. Ansley, supposedly from her then fiancé Delphin Slade, asking Mrs. Ansley to meet him after dark at the Coliseum?

Why hadn't Mrs. Slade even considered that Mrs. Ansley would have written back to Delphin, and that the two might have actually met that night after dark? All these years, she had believed Mrs. Ansley's rushed marriage to Horace two months later was an attempt to out-do her. Why could she not see the connection?

Mrs. Ansley confesses that she has always known that Mrs. Slade hated her. Why have the two maintained this facage of friendship, with so much ill will behind it?

Were you surprised by Mrs. Ansley's confession at the end of the story, or did you see it coming?

Please leave your comments, thoughts, and questions below! Join us in February for a discussion of Michael Chabon's Telegraph Avenue!

The Reader's Den: Edith Wharton's "Autres Temps"

Corinne Neary, Jefferson Market Library — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 12:14:09 -0500

At the start of Autres Temps, Mrs. Lidcote is arriving in New York on a steamer ship from Italy, after a long, self-imposed exile. Having fled New York's society years ago, when she became an outcast following her divorce, she is returning only after receiving news of her daughter's divorce and remarriage.

As the shapes of the city's skyline begin to emerge from the fog, Mrs. Lidcote is full of worry and unable to stop mulling over her past, which she fears will become her daughter Leila's future. When she shares these fears with an old friend, Franklin, whom she meets on the boat, he tells her that times have changed, that Leila won't face the same stigma, and what's more, he proposes to Mrs. Lidcote! She has a lot to think over, and she begins to really wonder if she does have a chance of being accepted again by those who cut her out years ago.

Why does Franklin try so hard to convince Mrs. Lidcote that she is just being paranoid, and is not a social outcast? Does he really believe times have changed so much, or is he just working towards his own goal of marrying her? Maybe he is trying to convince himself?
Franklin, Leila, and the relative sent to collect her, Susy, all have in common an attitude of gaiety when it comes to Leila's new marriage. They all try to convince Mrs. Lidcote that she is hopelessly old-fashioned and out of touch with the new way of doing things. Mrs. Lidcote starts to second guess herself, until it becomes clear that she is being excluded from Leila's dinner party. Why is everyone working so hard to convince her of something that doesn't seem to be true?
Instead of telling her mother directly that she should not attend her dinner party, Leila insists that she must be too exhausted after her journey to come. Does it seem that everyone is treating Mrs. Lidcote like a child? Why does Leila not think her mother will be able to see that she is being excluded?
Before she returns to Europe, Franklin comes to Mrs. Lidcote's hotel room to try once more to convince her that she will be accepted in society. Despite what had happened at Leila's home, Mrs. Lidcote suddenly agrees and tells Franklin she wants to go downstairs right then and there to see some old acquaintances. It is only then that Franklin balks, and the truth is made clear: he knows that she is still an outcast. Was Mrs. Lidcote really convinced, or was she trying to test Franklin?
This story was published in 1911. Does the social world of old New York hold any relevance when you read it today? Is it enjoyable as a look at a bygone era, or do you find parallels with today's society that you relate to?

Please leave any comments and questions below, and thank you for participating in the Reader's Den! Join us next week when we will discuss Wharton's 1934 story, Roman Fever.

The Reader's Den: Edith Wharton's "The Other Two"

Corinne Neary, Jefferson Market Library — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 09:16:36 -0500

As Edith Wharton's 1904 story, The Other Two, opens, Waythorn has just returned from his honeymoon with his new wife, Alice. This is his first marriage, but her third. Although it seems a bit scandalous, he has gone in to the marriage fully aware of, and fairly unconcerned with, how Alice is viewed in society: she is well liked, but with reservation.

She divorced her first husband, Mr. Haskett, with whom she has a daughter, before coming to New York on the arm of Gus Varick, whose social standing bought her acceptance, and who she then married and divorced in turn. Mr. Varick's well known taste for the high life and unsuitability to marriage allowed his wife to escape from this union with an air of virtue.

Waythorn is untroubled by his wife's past, until their return to New York finds him thrust uncomfortably into interaction with The Other Two.

Waythorn seems well aware of his own anxious nature, but he marries without concern about his wife's past marriages, even when friends advise him to be cautious. Why does he act so seemingly out of character?

Immediately upon return to work, Waythorn finds himself forced into a business relationship with Alice's first husband, Mr. Varick, and later that afternoon, the two happen to eat at the same restaurant. As Waythorn watches Varick eating lunch, he imagines him to be free of worry and care, and envies him. Is Varick so carefree, or is Waythorn just projecting these qualities on to him?

Alice's first husband, Mr. Haskett, becomes a frequent visitor to the Waythorn's home because of his daughter, Lily's illness. His presence makes Waythorn uncomfortable at first, and he is acutely aware of Haskett's lower social rank. What really disturbs him, however, is Haskett's inoffensiveness, when he had preferred to picture him as a brute. What is it that Haskett stirs up in Waythorn? Was Waythorn's acceptance of his wife's past dependent on the idea that her first two husbands were terrible men?

Although Waythorn finds it less and less difficult to interact with Alice's ex-husbands, it troubles him to see her converse with them. "Her pliancy was beginning to sicken him. Had she really no will of her own — no theory about her relation to these men?" What is it that Waythorn wants from Alice? Does he really think the situation is that easy for her? Can he ever be satisfied with Alice, or will he always feel that he is sharing her with her past?

We never really know what Alice is thinking through all of this, and her husband is pretty bad at communicating his insecurities to her. What do you think this story would be like if it were told from her perspective?

As a contemporary reader, how do you feel about Waythorn's attitude towards women? What message do you think Edith Wharton was trying to convey about his expectations of his wife?

Please leave comments and questions below to participate in the discussion! Next week, we will be discussing Autres Temps!

The Reader's Den: Edith Wharton's New York Stories

Corinne Neary, Jefferson Market Library — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 05:40:06 -0500

Happy New Year and welcome to 2013 in The Reader's Den!

Edith Wharton (1862-1937) was born in Greenwich Village into the wealthy New York Society that she would be famous for depicting in The House of Mirth and The Age of Innocence. Although she spent much of her life living in Newport, RI, Lenox, MA, and Europe, especially France, where she spent years in her later life, she is best known for her treatment of the stiff, conformist, aristocratic world of New York that she knew so well.

In addition to numerous novels and novellas, Wharton wrote poetry, books on travel, architecture and decor, including The Decoration of Houses, and dozens of short stories. She wrote prolifically despite the disapproval of her family, mental and physical health issues, divorce, and active participation in French relief efforts during World War I. Her short stories are housed in many collections, including The New York Stories of Edith Wharton.

Over the next three weeks, we will be discussing three of these short stories, all of which deal with their New York characters' attitudes towards, and sometimes obsession with, the past. Please leave any responses, thoughts, or questions in the comments section on each post to start the discussion!

January 7th-13th: "The Other Two" (1904): When Mr. Waythorn marries a woman already twice divorced, he doesn't worry about what people might say. Once married, however, he begins to be bothered by the same carefree manner that had attracted him to her. He begins to worry that she is " 'as easy as an old shoe' — a shoe that too many feet had worn."

January 14th-20th: "Autres Temps" (1916): After years of self-imposed exile, Mrs. Lidcote is returning to New York after learning of her daughter, Leila's divorce and remarriage. Horrified, because of her own divorce that cut her from New York's social circles, Mrs. Lidcote is repeatedly told that times have changed, but have they really?

January 21st-31st: "Roman Fever" (1934): Mrs. Slade and Mrs. Ansley, of numbers 20 and 23 East 73rd Street, have been friends and rivals for years. When these two Upper East Side widows vacation together in Rome with their daughters, the mood goes from nostalgic to vindictive, and a shocking secret is revealed.

Thank you for participating in The Reader's Den!

Reader’s Den: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer, Week 4

Lois Moore, Mid-Manhattan Library — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:28:03 -0500

This is the last week of our book discussion of Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. In my first post, I mentioned that it is a post-9/11 novel, published in 2005, but during the past month of discussion, I haven't focused on that aspect of the work. The book talks about Oskar's reaction to the 9/11 tragedy and his father's death at the World Trade Center as well as the reactions of his mother, the people Oskar interviews while trying to find the lock for his key, and various other characters. Foer's intent is to describe the aftermath of 9/11, rather than the event itself, although he uses some details of the event in his story.

EL&IC was somewhat controversial when it was first published because it was relatively soon after the event and feelings were still fresh and painful. For example, the last photos in the book showing a body falling from the Towers, even though it is designed as a flip book to show the body falling upwards (Oskar's attempt to reverse the tragedy), were too graphic for some. As I read, I was reminded forcefully of things from that time that I had forgotten, such as the many signs posted for missing friends and relatives, hoping they were still alive, and the empty casket burials. I don't know what my reaction to the book would have been if I had read it when it was first published, but I expect it would have been more emotionally intense. I don't know how a non-New Yorker or anyone who was not in NYC during the event itself would react to this book. Nor can I imagine what the reaction will be ten years (or more) from now when a teenager who wasn't born at the time reads it. Perhaps the key to what establishes a novel as definitive of an event is how powerfully and effectively it evokes an emotional or visceral response, one not based on personal memory but a kind of collective emotional truth.

In the first post I noted that the definitive novel about 9/11 has not been written yet, while novels immortalizing other wars and events have been identified. Here's an abbreviated list:

Civil War (1861-1865) – The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane, 1895

World War I (1914-1918) – All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, 1929

World War I American novel (1917-1918) – A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, 1929

World War II (1939 - 1945) – The Thin Red Line by James Jones, 1962

Alternate titles - The Naked and the Dead by Norman Mailer, 1948, From Here to Eternity by James Jones, 1951, and Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, 1961

Vietnam War (1955-1975) – Fields of Fire by James H. Webb, 1978

Alternate title – The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien, 1990

As a point of interest, I've noted the dates of the wars as well as the dates the books were published. What might be interesting is to see how many of the authors actually served in the wars. Please let me know if you have any other suggestions for the list.

In an interview with Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Foer answers the question of the significance of the title to the book itself. In his view, the book deals with love and war, both of which are loud and close, yet many of the characters are silent and distant, (see Week 3 post). Foer hopes the book causes the reader to feel loudly and closely its messages about love and war and the pain of loss. In my opinion, the silence and distance of many characters in the book emphasize feelings that are the exact opposite of the title. For example, Oskar is looking for closeness and afraid of it at the same time, as are his grandparents. It is ironic that amidst all the noisy events there is an internal core of silence, that while some characters are reaching out for love, others are putting up walls to avoid closeness.

After reading EL&IC, I think its overall theme is loss, including dealing with loss, fear of loss (especially loss of love) and fear of dying. There are so many examples throughout the book. While Oskar is dealing with the loss of his father, his grandfather is still mourning the loss of his beloved in the Dresden bombing, and his grandmother is mourning the loss of her family in the same disaster and the distant relationship with her husband. These fears transmute into a fear of living that manifests itself in two different ways, inactivity (the grandfather abandoning his son before birth) or extreme activity (Oskar's prolonged search throughout New York City for the lock for his key). Either way of attempting to run from life and its fears ends in a circle. No matter which path you choose in running from your life, you eventually come back to the same fears and the need to confront them. In other words, it is through living that one overcomes the fear of living. Oskar found the lock for his key, but the solution wasn't what he was expecting. He worked through his loss and his fears indirectly by searching for a last message of love from his father, by living in loving hope instead of withdrawing. In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “Where there is love there is life.”

I hope you enjoyed EL&IC and the discussion. In January Reader's Den will explore The New York Stories of Edith Wharton. Mixed Bag: Story Time for Grown-Ups and Mixed Bag PM are also featuring stories by Edith Wharton in January. Have a wonderful holiday and please join us in the New Year.

Want to Talk About Reading? Reader's Den 2013 Online Book Discussion Schedule

Ryan P. Donovan, Mid-Manhattan Library — Sat, 29 Dec 2012 09:28:01 -0500

It’s hard to believe that 2012 is almost over. As we look forward to the new year, I am proud to present our upcoming Reader’s Den online book discussion titles for 2013. With an eclectic mix of book discussion leaders hailing from Jefferson Market, Columbus, Mulberry Street, Spuyten Duyvil, and the Mid-Manhattan Library, this is sure to be our best year yet!

Unlike previous years, the Reader’s Den is sticking to a thematic element for 2013: books by New Yorkers or about New York. If you are a member of the social network Goodreads, be sure to join the Reader’s Den group — there are handy notifications reminding you which book is coming up next. Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you don’t already.

Without further ado, here is the Reader’s Den schedule for 2013:

January: The New York Stories of Edith Wharton by Edith Wharton
February: Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon
March: Leaving the Atocha Station by Ben Lerner
April: A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
May: The Contract With God Trilogy by Will Eisner
June: Time and Again by Jack Finney
July: Watchmen by Alan Moore
August: Slaves of New York by Tama Janowitz
September: Unterzakhn by Leela Corman
October: The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling
November: The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye
December: The Alienist by Caleb Carr

For previous books covered by our online book discussion group, please visit our schedule page. It includes an archive of every title discussed since 2009.