• Postville teachers speak out. A fellow lawyer passed along this letter on an immigration law listserv Friday. Like the original post indicates, I don’t know if it is authentic but this teacher’s column is. Both are worth reading and considering.
• Omega Minor by Paul Verhaeghen won the this year’s Independent Foreign Fiction Prize. Because I enjoyed the 2006 winner, Out Stealing Horses, so much, I picked up the local chain bookstore’s only copy of Omega Minor earlier in the week.
• Regardless of whether it’s “terrible” or he “hit one out of the park,” the local chain’s 40 percent off coupon also resulted in James Frey’s latest, Bright Shiny Morning, finding its way into the house. Despite all the controversy, I’m still a fan of A Million Little Pieces.
• Regardless of your language, these pictures are heartbreaking for any book lover. (Via.)
• As I’ll be in Tallinn in July, maybe I should peruse the Estonian Literary Magazine before then. (Via.)
• Hmm, “the gold standard in book reviewing” now pays $25 per review. Evidently freelance book reviewers for the print media better not give up their day jobs (says someone who does it online for nuthin’.)

“Playing in the Band,” Grateful Dead (Skull & Roses)

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Guess that shows what the DNC thinks of South Dakota bloggers or South Dakota. As noted a while ago, Badlands Blue was actually operated by a Democratic Party operative out of Virginia. I haven’t been back to the blog since removing it from my blogroll a couple months ago. But I’m guessing it’s still financed and authorized by the state Democratic Party.

Maybe there weren’t any other applicants to be South Dakota’s convention blogger (I sure as hell didn’t apply). Personally, I would rather South Dakota have no blog representation. But evidently the Democratic Party would rather take a mouthpiece blog than someone with party affiliation who might actually dare to express independent thought. A nice way to uphold the party’s professed — but all too seldom practiced — principles.

Just more reinforcement for my disdain and hatred of political parties and politics as currently practiced in the U.S.

Variously attributed

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Anyway, twenty-two years ago this past weekend, my then less than three month old daughter was present when I graduated from law school. The situation was reversed last Saturday as my wife and I (and middle daughter) attended her undergraduate commencement ceremonies. Let’s just say she graduated in less time and with (deservedly) more honors than my undergraduate career.

Surprisingly, seeing her graduate didn’t make me feel any older or seem as . It seemed like just another step in the ongoing process of watching her grow up and become independent. Here’s what made me feel old: how tired I feel from helping her move stuff back home for the summer (before she heads off this fall for grad school at the U of Missouri), the small party we had for her Saturday evening, the return of middle daughter for the summer and the addition of a new dog to the house, all in the course of about three days.

Despite the delay in getting this posted, I’m proud of her accomplishments so far and the fact her career choice is aimed at helping people. That and the joy of seeing her finding her own way in the world far outweigh what it (and the aches and pains) say about how old I’m getting.

“Teach Your Children,” CSN&Y, Déjà Vu

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After indicating I would be interested, the woman began gathering general information, such as educational level, age and whether and how I was employed. When I told her where I worked and that I was a lawyer, she said she was sorry but no one associated with the legal system or the courts was eligible to participate.

In hindsight, I wonder if the focus group was for the proposed abortion law or one of the other initiated measures on the November ballot. It makes some sense to my simplistic mind that they may not want a focus group on an initiated law to get caught up in a discussion of legal issues when they’re looking for what concerns and what sells to the average voter.

Or, then again, maybe I’m wrong and they just don’t like lawyers.

James Fenimore Cooper, The American Democrat

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Corey’s post hits one of the core issues on the head: am I saving the book for society as a whole or is it going to be my “desert island book”? At first blush, you might think the book you save would be the same regardless. But I’m not so sure. For example, I’ve never liked Shakespeare. But do my personal tastes mean that the only book future generations have shouldn’t see Shakespeare’s collected works (or something by Twain or Dickens or Tolstoy)?

I ultimately opted for a blend. I figured I’d pick something I know I’d read but that undoubtedly has both literary and social value. Thus, my choice would be George Orwell’s 1984. If we’re in a situation where we need to talk about saving books, then plainly we would be much closer to Winston Smith’s world than we are today. Society undoubtedly will need both literary quality and useful social/political commentary.

Of course, ask me next week or next month and the answer might well be different.

George Orwell, 1984

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Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization was the No. 1 book in nonfiction. Baker’s book is an atypical look at World War II. Not only does it advocate the pacifist view, it raises the question of whether our “white hats” were all that white. Part of Baker’s problem, though, is that by challenging traditional views in asking if the Allies really held a moral high ground over Germany and Japan, he can be viewed as winking at Nazism or being indifferent to the Holocaust. (Although the book reinforces that the U.S. and Great Britain were themselves fairly indifferent to the plight of European Jews before and during the war.)

I actually thought about casting my vote for Human Smoke. I didn’t because of the issue I struggled with in reading it — a feeling some of the statements and quotes Baker cites were not necessarily in context. Still, I can understand why it might reach the top of the list.

His Illegal Self by Peter Carey was the only work I’d read of the top 10 fiction selections. It tied with six others for fourth in the voting. I have to say, though, that it wouldn’t have come close to being in my top five. His Illegal Self tells the story of a young boy who is the son of 1960s radicals who have gone underground. A visit from the woman he believes to be his mother leads to the two of them going to ground in Australia. Despite the praise it has gathered in the mainstream reviews, I found it inconsistent and ultimately unsatisfying.

Given that the books I voted for again didn’t come close to the top 10, it seems fairly clear that if and when the book I vote for finishes at the top of one of these lists, it’s gotta be one helluva book.

Winston Churchill, quoted in Nicholson Baker’s Human Smoke

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• The 2007 Nebula Awards were announced last weekend. Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union won Best Novel. Since it is also nominated for the Hugo Award and the Sidewise Awards, I picked it up from the library yesterday.
• Those awards came on the heels of the announcements of the winners of the 2007 LA Times Book Prizes. None of the winners show up on my list of books that I’ve read.
• Richard Morgan’s Black Man won this year’s Arthur C. Clarke Award, given for the best SF novel published in the UK the prior year. For whatever reason, the book was published in the US as Thirteen. (Via.)
• In light of Chabon’s Nebula win, io9 gives a crash course in alternate history novels.
• Also showing there’s more to SF than sometimes meets the eye, io9 provides a list of 20 science books every SF fan should read. I’ve actually read three: Cosmos, The Coming Plague and The Code Book.
• Speaking of prize winners, The Millions has an interesting analysis of the winners of and finalists for six major international book awards since 1995. Based on C. Max’s methodology, The Known World leads the pack.
• Not all books receive awards and praise, regardless of their quality. Thus, John Scalzi collects a variety of authors doing something he did: posting some of their one-star Amazon.com reviews.

Anna Quindlen, New York Times, Aug. 7, 1991

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The next big question isn’t a legal one. It’s how long and bloody the road to trial or the next dispositive motions will be. One thing is certain. If tickets were available to Bill Janklow taking Beck’s deposition they would generate premium prices.

Memorandum opinion, Scott v. Beck and The Sioux Falls Argus Leader, April 28, 2008

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Originally published in London in 1993, The Man Who Turned Into Himself made its U.S. appearance in 1994. In fact, I still have the first hardbound U.S. edition on my bookshelves. The book made it through a couple U.S. printings with different covers and imprints, occasionally ending up in the remainder stacks. The book reappeared in print in London about five years ago and now has returned to the U.S. in a trade paper edition with another new cover.

How does its reappearance have any thing to do with theoretical physics? Well, the plot is predicated on the “many worlds” or “parallel universes” theory that flows from quantum mechanics. When the book first appeared, the theory was receiving increasing attention in the scientific community. Over the last several years, the idea has found more mention in mainstream culture. Thus, not only are publishers dealing with an interesting novel, they’re finding new audiences for it.

It’s tough to go into too much detail about The Man Who Turned Into Himself without giving away core parts of the plot. Rick Hamilton is a publisher of small trade magazines who barely avoids serious injury or death one morning in a spill from the roof of his house and a near-collision with a large truck driving to work. Then, he runs from a business meeting several hours later, overwhelmed by a premonition of the death of his wife. He arrives at the scene of a car accident and while his young son is alive, his wife dies before his eyes. A moment later he is Richard Hamilton, a real estate developer, who was just involved in an accident with a truck and whose wife is alive and well and insistent they never had a son.

This is the launching point and framework by which the reader — and the main character — examines which of these two lives is the “real” one. Has Hamilton somehow landed in a parallel universe, has he gone mad or are was he in shock and just hallucinating? Yet that is really only one of the thought experiments at work here. The more significant ones explore larger questions of selfhood and meaning. What makes us who we are? Is the meaning we search for merely a self-construct? How would our relationships with others change if a few elements of our life or theirs changed? It is, in essence, perhaps the most core philosophical questions: who am I and why am I here?

Ambrose doesn’t rely solely on the many worlds theory as the vehicle for this exploration. There are plot twists and stylistic approaches aplenty. And perhaps an indication of his success of his story telling rests on one simple fact. Unlike most popular novels published 15 years ago, even in republication today The Man Who Turned Into Himself has a scientific framework that remains topical and, more important, still contemporary writing and ideas.

David Ambrose, The Man Who Turned Into Himself

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I picked up Roberto Bolaño’s Nazi Literature in the Americas after seeing repeated references to it, most of them rather glowing. I knew what it was about. I knew that Bolaño, a Chilean author who died in 2003, was often haled as being in the tradition of Jorge Luis Borges and what has come to be called “slipstream” fiction. I know I’ve not really been a fan of the slipstream I’ve read. In other words, I knew what I was getting into. It’s just that knowing what you’re getting still may not assist in being able to appreciate it.

I’ll admit Nazi Literature, first published in Spanish in 1996, shows Bolaño had both a stunning imagination and fine prose skills. It is a collection of biographical sketches of fictional fascist writers in North, Central and South America. And while Nazis and neo-Nazis appear (some still alive in this literary world), the emphasis here is not necessarily on Hitler’s world view but a general ultra-right, fascist view of society.

Yet not only does Bolaño create the profiles of 30 novelists, poets and journalists, he places them in various schools and categories and with a variety of talents. In other words, he truly has created an entire alternative literary world and history. Thus, there’s the Mendiluce Clan, an Argentinian mother and two of her children, and the Schiaffino brothers, whose poetry reflected their deep involvement in Argentinian soccer gangs. There’s the right-wing Catholic author who writes endless tracts “refuting” Enlightenment and leftist philosophers, some of whose ideas he does not grasp. There’s the Columbians who not only write books but actually fight for the SS in World War II. And there’s the American writer born in Los Angeles in 1962 who creates interminable interwoven science fiction sages involving the Fourth Reich in America.

In addition to the insight and inventiveness in creating these profiles and the literary world they populate, there is an “Epilogue for Monsters.” It contains appendices describing a variety of “secondary characters” in the literary movements, outlining various publishing houses and magazines, and providing a bibliography of books in the genre. Again, this all flows from Bolaño’s mind and pen.

Plainly, then, the imagination involved in this work, which totals slightly more than 200 pages all together, is mind boggling. Similarly, there is little doubt it may be an excellent example of of slipstream or metafiction. But I end up struggling with the ultimate point. Perhaps it’s as simple being too unfamiliar with various literary schools or being unable to recognize the occasional appearance of real authors or literary controversies to pick up on anything more than some of the obvious irony or humor. In the final analysis, it strikes an illiterati like me as an interesting, even amazing, exercise but one which makes you wonder where Bolaño might have taken us in terms of particular ideas or characters had a similar investment of imaginative effort been focused on one or a few of the wide variety of story lines and ideas here.

Maybe I’m just too linear. I appreciate the unparalleled skill and craftsmanship but the ultimate upshot eludes me. Still, I have to admit that is not a failing on Bolaño’s part. If I don’t get it, it’s a matter of personal taste and preference.

Roberto Bolaño, Nazi Literature in the Americas

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