2014 books: 9-12

[the_siobhan]

    

Note Found in a Bottle by Susan Cheever Another proof. This one is an autobiographical account of the author's life as an alcoholic. It's a short book, compactly written, but it still manages to convey an entire atmosphere within the terse paragraphs. The white wealthy 50's suburbs where the wives meet their husbands at the door every night with a pitcher of chilled martinis, drinking cheap beer and wine in college, and the multiple failed marriages with their fights and adulteries and unhappiness. She reminds me of Daisy and her friends from the Great Gatsby, surrounded by leisure and privilege and being profoundly bored and acting like assholes. "All my friends forgot things. Remembering was for squares."

    

Unsuitable for Ladies: an Anthology of Women Travellers by Jane Robinson I distinctly remember buying this from the PEN Canada desk at the Eden Mills Writer's Festival. I think the last time I went to the Writer's Festival was in '96 or so, so this gives you an idea how long books hang around in my possession. I think part of the reason this particular one sat unread for so long is because I had so much trouble getting into it. It is entirely excerpts of writings by English women who have travelled through various parts of the world "unescorted" (in other words, "without a man"). The writing itself is really interesting, but I ended up not being able to get past the way it is laid out in the book.

It starts out with a chapter on why the women chose to travel and there are chapters devoted to each part of the world being visited. Each chapter is entirely made up of excerpts of travelogs and diary entries by different women. The problem - and it is entirely probable that this is only a problem for me and how I read - is that there is no consistency of voice. I usually don't have a problem adjusting to an unfamiliar writing style because over the course of my reading I get used to the cadence of the text. The fact the entire text of this book is paragraphs from different women means I never get immersed enough to be really comfortable. If entire chapters were written by an individual woman I would have been fine. Conversely if the author had written most of the text herself and used the paragraphs as illustrations or examples, that would also work. As it was I found the format she used so distracting I gave up on it, even though the actual material was really interesting.

So sadly, not a keeper. Which is too bad because like I said, the material itself is really interesting.


    

The Kitchen Readings: Untold Stories of Hunter S. Thompson by Michael Cleverly and Bob Braudis I picked this up at the University of Toronto book store lawn sale. The book is made up of short vignettes from Thompson's life, written by two of his closest friends from Aspen. Of course they want the stories to be interesting so they pick out some of the most memorable episodes, which are usually memorable specifically because Thompson is engaging in classic "gonzo" behaviour. This ends up creating situations such as where one of the authors talk about how he was such a "warm Southern gentleman" - and then follows immediately with a story about how he is either a complete dick to a stranger or endangering the life of one of his friends by doing something like shooting at him as a joke. So you know, there's a bit of a mixed message here.

The one detail that really stuck out for me as something that I haven't seen elsewhere is that Thompson was one of those people who was incapable of dealing with the day-to-day details of running his own life. He was fortunate in that his success as a writer allowed him to hire people to do things like make sure the royalties got deposited, the bills got paid, and the trash got taken out because left to his own organizational abilities none of those things happened. I absolutely believe this to true because I know a number of people with exactly that problem. Intellectual and creative geniuses. Can't make toast.

The story of Thompson's work for Lisl Auman is here, as well the events around his death and his ridiculous send-off. In the end this reads like a bunch of good-old boys sitting around reminiscing about a much-loved mutual friend and telling each other "remember that time when" stories. Not a bad way to be remembered.


    

Anais: The Erotic Life of Anais Nin by Noël Riley Fitch This book was a gift. I initially read it about half way through and got bogged down, probably because some of the stuff from her early life was a bit triggery at the time. Anyway, the book. Most of her life story is culled from her diaries. She kept notes of every incident in her life, and the book mentions that she was up to 65 volumes by the time she was 40. Fitch obviously studied both her diaries and the things written about her by the people she interacted with. It ends up being a pretty thick book, and it goes into exhaustive detail about the events of her life; what she was writing, who was in her social and professional circles at the time, how she describes her feelings about what is going on.

Nin comes across as quite the force of nature. The sheer number of artists she influenced is in itself pretty incredible. Her personal life was also incredible - she maintained two marriages on opposites coasts of the US for years. The text got a bit dry after a while because it is incredibly detailed, yet there were places where I wished I could get more information. For example her interactions with some of the beat poets and with Aldous Huxley. For that, I imagine, I'll have to go straight to the source material.