Once In a Lifetime...

In 2006, the New York Times book editor, Sam Tanenhaus, polled 125 “prominent writers” on their choice of the “best work of fiction of the last 25 years”. Like the Oscars, a debate over the results ensued that was arguably more interesting than the final tally. I’d read quite a few, including the poll’s winner, Beloved. But of the top five, Morrison’s novel was the only one I’d actually read. I pledged to tackle the remaining four at some point, but didn’t get around to even starting this in earnest until this summer. With a mere eight weeks to go to the start of the semester, here’s where things stand: I finished American Pastoral a few weeks ago; took a half-hearted swipe at Blood Meridian, but set it aside; continue to keep putting off the Rabbit Angstrom tetralogy; and am halfway through DeLillo’s Underworld, which I find slow going but intriguing, especially the post-9/11 resonances.

Reading Underworld takes me back to NYC in more ways than one. When the paperback came out, I often saw ambitious readers taking on the 800-plus pages. In my mind’s eye I can see them even now, perched on the hard orange seats of the subways, the thick Vintage book propped on laps, purses, backpacks, and briefcases. The deep-focus cover photograph by Kertesz of the Twin Towers in the fog behind the steeple of Judson Memorial Church announced the fact that they were reading The Book of The Moment. And because it was The Book of The Moment, I set the chin of my ego, dug in the heels of my resistance, and, self-conscious to more than one fault, refused to read it until the buzz died down.

What turns a book into an event? I’m not talking about books that appear and gradually or even suddenly evolve into cultural happenings. The Lovely Bones. Don’t Let’s Go the Dogs Tonight. The Liar’s Club. Even Running with Scissors. I’m not talking about events related to books where publication and other events merge into something historical. Portnoy’s Complaint. The Satanic Verses. The Corrections.I’m not talking about prizes, either, although prizes do make a book an event. I have a friend who despises the Booker---excuse me, the Man Booker prizewinners just because they’ve won it. In America we have so many prizes to choose from that they dilute the event-dom that the award might bestow. “Sure,” I shrug, “Olive Kittredge won the Pulitzer, but Tree of Smoke won the NBA…” The Nobel Prize guarantees that an author’s subsequent titles become events regardless of size—Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is a mere 160 pages, but the publication hosannas, deserved or not, suggested a book ten times the length. After the critical success of Everything Was Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer’s second book was bound to be an event; its use of 9/11 within what felt like months of the attacks inevitably turned Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close into a Big Book Event. Length or ambition seem like tangible factors, as evidenced by Tree of Smoke; a gimmick like serial publication in this age of non-subscribers will work—-pace Tom Wolfe. And the finality of death makes the voice-from-beyond impact of posthumous publication a surefire event, Roberto Bolano’s 2666 being a recent example.

I may live in an age of noise and speed and size and buzz, but it still gives me a great deal of pleasure to walk into a quiet, independent bookstore and turn over the new, unfamiliar volumes lying face up on the front tables. There is a gratification that is like meeting a stranger that no one you know has met, of taking a risk, a chance. Of taking all that unfamiliarity home, of having that intimate experience with the book one-on-one, completely free of the sights and sounds and other sensations that are necessary for any activity to become something beyond mere experience.