I'm headed to Greece tomorrow night!
One of the great, and sometimes maddening, things about travel is planning a reading list. I put more thought into this than into clothing, sightseeing.
In Jack Viertel's "Secret Life of the American Musical," Viertel admits he is not an ideal traveler, because he just thinks about musicals while he is wandering through ruins. So, for example, he spent his own Greece trip contemplating "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." (That's when he knew he needed to write a book about musicals. And maybe his trip was to Rome, not Greece. See! I'm so deeply aware of geography and history!)
I know already that I will spend a fair amount of my Athens time pondering Disney's "Hercules." Specifically: Did anyone acknowledge Disney was clearly ripping off Howard Ashman's gospel trio from "Little Shop of Horrors"? Would the gospel chorus, in "Hercules," have any chance of succeeding today, given all the hand-wringing about cultural appropriation? Does "I Won't Say I'm in Love" count as a conditional love song?
Anyway, like any good addict, I have many bizarre rules and conditions surrounding my addiction. I'm like Patrick Melrose in "Bad News," but my addiction is books and not drugs. The books must be fairly short, because I won't have a fixed routine and may not have dedicated reading time, and if I'm not given an hour to sink into a long book, then the book had better be short to keep me interested and motivated.
Also, the book really needs to have an attractive cover and to be in pristine condition. We're told not to judge a book by its cover, but obviously, this is bullshit. Jane Austen novels sell better when they are given sexy modern physical packaging--and why shouldn't they sell better in this situation? Good marketing counts for everything. Just ask the producers of "Wicked," who scored a home-run by having the good witch whisper in the bad witch's ear in all the "Wicked" ads. Those stylish curves, that shocking red smirk: The "Wicked" marketers are every bit as virtuosic as Idina Menzel.
So: here are my books.
(7) "All That Jazz" (A Short History of the Musical CHICAGO). It is published by Oxford University Press, so it can't be pure trash. Also, it will allow me to indulge a fantasy, which is that I will morph into this particular writer, who seems to spend his entire life churning out chatty books about Broadway. Also, Walter Bobbie is maybe a dick, and he maybe recently helped to bring about events that led to the suicide of a "Chicago" standby (see the NYTimes). So it's safe to say "Chicago," right now, is on everyone's mind.
(6) "Less." It's a novel about a gay guy and it just won the Pulitzer, and it's apparently funny, so this is a no-brainer.
(5) "Tyrant." Here, Stephen Greenblatt writes a short, breezy survey of all the depictions of tyranny in Shakespeare's plays. For me, reading about Shakespeare is almost inevitably more fun than reading actual Shakespeare. And I get to indulge another fantasy, which is that I'm some droll old man who spends his life writing accessible, gossipy books about the distant past. (Yes, this here is secretly a book about Trump, but that's the thing about the book that I find least interesting.)
(4) "The Ninth Hour." I'm on an Alice McDermott kick. I wish she would include more actual events in her stories, but if you're in the right frame of mind, if you're rested, she can be mesmerizing. (This is the only book-to-be-re-read selection I'm taking on the trip.)
(3) "The Wife." People say Meg Wolitzer is as great as Jonathan Franzen, and "The Wife" will soon be a Glenn Close movie! Oscar buzz! What more do you need to know?
(2) "Jell-O Girls." This is the ultimate case of judging a book by its cover. This cover is kick-ass. It's a big wobbly plate of red (cherry) Jell-O. And the font has an early-sixties feel. I imagine I'm holding the textual equivalent of a "Mad Men" episode. The title is fabulous. And I can't get enough of the memoir genre, and the issues it raises. If you haven't had a storied career, if you aren't a celebrity, then how do you write about your struggles in a way that has universal appeal? How do you turn the stuff of your own life into a kind of mythology? How do you "re-shape the world" for the reader? (I think the all-time best memoir may be "O The Glory of It All," by Sean Wilsey.)
"Jell-O Girls" promises scintillating anecdotes about repressed female Jell-O millionaires, drowning in money and unable to realize their artistic ambitions. And the writing is apparently very smart. I'm sold.
(1) "Early Work." This is a quiet new novel about dick-ish young men trying to make their way in the literary world. It sounds like it has echoes of "Goodbye, Columbus." It's short and it's not gimmicky, and the Times was a bit bewildered to review it, because a high-quality Philip Roth-ish novel with careful attention to the art of shaping beautiful sentences? That's not so common right now. Maybe I will read it twice.
Do you share my travel quirks? Do you think I should maybe put the books down and notice the scenery? How do you pack books for trips? Inquiring minds wish to know!
P.S. People say James Woods in "Hercules" is the best innovation since Robin Williams in "Aladdin." But I actually prefer Woods's work to RW. Woods seems effortless as Hades. RW seems labored and exhausting (if you ask me). I know Woods is a problematic human, but I love his Hades performance.
P.P.S. Better than James Woods? Rip Torn as Zeus. Every time he speaks, my heart soars.
One of the great, and sometimes maddening, things about travel is planning a reading list. I put more thought into this than into clothing, sightseeing.
In Jack Viertel's "Secret Life of the American Musical," Viertel admits he is not an ideal traveler, because he just thinks about musicals while he is wandering through ruins. So, for example, he spent his own Greece trip contemplating "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum." (That's when he knew he needed to write a book about musicals. And maybe his trip was to Rome, not Greece. See! I'm so deeply aware of geography and history!)
I know already that I will spend a fair amount of my Athens time pondering Disney's "Hercules." Specifically: Did anyone acknowledge Disney was clearly ripping off Howard Ashman's gospel trio from "Little Shop of Horrors"? Would the gospel chorus, in "Hercules," have any chance of succeeding today, given all the hand-wringing about cultural appropriation? Does "I Won't Say I'm in Love" count as a conditional love song?
Anyway, like any good addict, I have many bizarre rules and conditions surrounding my addiction. I'm like Patrick Melrose in "Bad News," but my addiction is books and not drugs. The books must be fairly short, because I won't have a fixed routine and may not have dedicated reading time, and if I'm not given an hour to sink into a long book, then the book had better be short to keep me interested and motivated.
Also, the book really needs to have an attractive cover and to be in pristine condition. We're told not to judge a book by its cover, but obviously, this is bullshit. Jane Austen novels sell better when they are given sexy modern physical packaging--and why shouldn't they sell better in this situation? Good marketing counts for everything. Just ask the producers of "Wicked," who scored a home-run by having the good witch whisper in the bad witch's ear in all the "Wicked" ads. Those stylish curves, that shocking red smirk: The "Wicked" marketers are every bit as virtuosic as Idina Menzel.
So: here are my books.
(7) "All That Jazz" (A Short History of the Musical CHICAGO). It is published by Oxford University Press, so it can't be pure trash. Also, it will allow me to indulge a fantasy, which is that I will morph into this particular writer, who seems to spend his entire life churning out chatty books about Broadway. Also, Walter Bobbie is maybe a dick, and he maybe recently helped to bring about events that led to the suicide of a "Chicago" standby (see the NYTimes). So it's safe to say "Chicago," right now, is on everyone's mind.
(6) "Less." It's a novel about a gay guy and it just won the Pulitzer, and it's apparently funny, so this is a no-brainer.
(5) "Tyrant." Here, Stephen Greenblatt writes a short, breezy survey of all the depictions of tyranny in Shakespeare's plays. For me, reading about Shakespeare is almost inevitably more fun than reading actual Shakespeare. And I get to indulge another fantasy, which is that I'm some droll old man who spends his life writing accessible, gossipy books about the distant past. (Yes, this here is secretly a book about Trump, but that's the thing about the book that I find least interesting.)
(4) "The Ninth Hour." I'm on an Alice McDermott kick. I wish she would include more actual events in her stories, but if you're in the right frame of mind, if you're rested, she can be mesmerizing. (This is the only book-to-be-re-read selection I'm taking on the trip.)
(3) "The Wife." People say Meg Wolitzer is as great as Jonathan Franzen, and "The Wife" will soon be a Glenn Close movie! Oscar buzz! What more do you need to know?
(2) "Jell-O Girls." This is the ultimate case of judging a book by its cover. This cover is kick-ass. It's a big wobbly plate of red (cherry) Jell-O. And the font has an early-sixties feel. I imagine I'm holding the textual equivalent of a "Mad Men" episode. The title is fabulous. And I can't get enough of the memoir genre, and the issues it raises. If you haven't had a storied career, if you aren't a celebrity, then how do you write about your struggles in a way that has universal appeal? How do you turn the stuff of your own life into a kind of mythology? How do you "re-shape the world" for the reader? (I think the all-time best memoir may be "O The Glory of It All," by Sean Wilsey.)
"Jell-O Girls" promises scintillating anecdotes about repressed female Jell-O millionaires, drowning in money and unable to realize their artistic ambitions. And the writing is apparently very smart. I'm sold.
(1) "Early Work." This is a quiet new novel about dick-ish young men trying to make their way in the literary world. It sounds like it has echoes of "Goodbye, Columbus." It's short and it's not gimmicky, and the Times was a bit bewildered to review it, because a high-quality Philip Roth-ish novel with careful attention to the art of shaping beautiful sentences? That's not so common right now. Maybe I will read it twice.
Do you share my travel quirks? Do you think I should maybe put the books down and notice the scenery? How do you pack books for trips? Inquiring minds wish to know!
P.S. People say James Woods in "Hercules" is the best innovation since Robin Williams in "Aladdin." But I actually prefer Woods's work to RW. Woods seems effortless as Hades. RW seems labored and exhausting (if you ask me). I know Woods is a problematic human, but I love his Hades performance.
P.P.S. Better than James Woods? Rip Torn as Zeus. Every time he speaks, my heart soars.
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