Byline: Michael Dirda
Prize-winning columnist Michael Dirda takes your questions and comments concerning literature, books and the joys of reading.
Submit your questions and comments before or during today's discussion.
Each week Dirda's name appears -- in unmistakably big letters -- on page 15 of The Post's Book World section. If he's not reviewing a hefty literary biography or an ambitious new novel, he's likely to be turning out one of his idiosyncratic essays or rediscovering some minor Victorian classic. Although he earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from Cornell, Dirda has somehow managed to retain a myopic 12-year-old's passion for reading. Heparticularly enjoys comic novels, intellectual history, locked-room mysteries, innovative fiction of all sorts.
These days, Dirda says he still spends inordinate amounts of time mourning his lost youth, listening to music (Glenn Gould, Ella Fitzgerald, Diana Krall, The Tallis Scholars), and daydreaming ("my only real hobby"). He claims that the happiest hours of his week are spent sitting in front of a computer, working. His most recent books include "Readings: Essays and Literary Entertainments" (Indiana hardcover, 2000; Norton paperback, 2003) and his self-portrait of the reader as a young man, "An Open Book: Coming of Age in the Heartland" (Norton, 2003). In the fall of 2004 Norton will bring out a new collection of his essays and reviews. He is currently working on several other book projects, all shrouded in themost complete secrecy.
Dirda joined The Post in 1978, having grown up in the working-class steel town of Lorain, Ohio and graduated with highest honors in English from Oberlin College. His favorite writers are Stendhal, Chekhov, Jane Austen, Montaigne, Evelyn Waugh, T.S. Eliot, Nabokov, John Dickson Carr, Joseph Mitchell, P.G. Wodehouse and Jack Vance. He thinks the greatest novel of all time is either Murasaki Shikubu's "The Tale of Genji" or Proust's "A la recherche du temps perdu." In a just world he would own Watteau's painting "The Embarkation for Cythera." He is a member of the Baker Street Irregulars, The Ghost Story Society, and The Wodehouse Society. He enjoys teaching and was once a visiting professor in the Honors College at the University of Central Florida, which he misses to this day.
____________________
Michael Dirda: Welcome to Dirda on Books! Once more, I've torn myself away from a book review, having been trapped inside again on a beautiful autumn day, my fingers tapping on a keyboard. Tapping very slowly, I might add. Perhaps my pen has gleaned my once teeming brain?
At all events, we'll talk books for the next hour. So let's see what stumpers you've got for me this week.
_______________________
Belcamp, Md.: Hello Mr. Dirda,
I am curious to know what is your opinion of the relative value of a signed first edition with a signed bookplate vs. one signed on a flyleaf. In recent months, Daedalus Books has had signed first editions of current books in their catalogs in which the authors have signed a bookplate that is pasted to a flyleaf. For example, their current catalog has available the latest books by Doris Kearns Goodwin, John Berendt and others with such bookplates and at substantial savings off the list prices of the books.
How did they get their stocks of these new releases at reduced prices and signed? They usually deal in remaindered books. Does the fact that these are bookplates detract from the potential value? I enjoy these chats as a highlight of the week, even though I usually must read them later in the day. Thanks for your insights.
Michael Dirda: Signed bookplates are less desirable than signed books. Why? Because in the latter the author has actually held your copy of the book in his or her hands. The bookplates are cranked out by the hundreds. Indeed, presidential signatures on such plates were often mechanically reproduced; every one was exactly alike.
I suppose that Daedalus cut a deal with the publishers to buy enough books and bookplates, so that they received a substantial discount, which they've passed on to customers. But these books aren't ever likely to be of great value.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: Hi, Michael, thanks for all of your great reviews and comments. I hope you can help me. I've been reading Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, and have been enthralled with Jack Aubrey and Stephen Maturin and their adventures. Any suggestions on something just as swashbuckling and literary to fill the void when I finish the series? Thanks!
Michael Dirda: Sure. You can go on to similar swashbuckling series, some being more plot driven, but all very readable:
George MacDonald Fraser, the Flashman novels, of which there are 12. See my review this coming Sunday of Flashman on the March.
Bernard Cornwell, the Sharpe series, about a rifleman in an infantry regiment during the Napoleonic wars.
Dorothy Dunning, The Lymond Chronicles. Swashbuckling adventures across knightly Europe; the first is A Game of Kings.
C.S. Forester, the Hornblower novels. Beat to Quarters is a good starting point.
The work of Rafael Sabatini, especially Captain Blood and Scaramouche.
_______________________
Alexandria, Va.: I've just enjoyed Susan Orlean's (old) book "Saturday Night", about what people do on saturday night. Have you read any of her newer collections, like "The Orchid Thief" or "My Kind of Place"?
I learned that rich never have parties on the weekend, that's when they escape from the soirees they attended during the week. Also that most people have a psychological trigger that signals the end of the fun weekend and the start of the dreary work week. Mine is the ticking of the 60 Minutes stopwatch. Do you have one?
Michael Dirda: Haven't read any of Orlean's books.
Hmm. Every Sunday night my wife starts to grow crabby because all the laundry hasn't been folded and put away. That's really the signal that any possible fun is dead for that evening. THis usually happens directly after the Simpsons ends.
_______________________
Washington, D.C.: I'm new to this chat, so forgive me if this has been asked many times before, but do you have any travel writing favorites? When vacations are too far off, there's nothing like some escapist reading to help make it through!
Michael Dirda: Lots. Here are five titles of favorite travel books, virtually all by sandy-haired young Brits:
A.W. Kinglake, Eothen (the Middle East in the 1830s)
Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana (Central Asia, where you can't drink from the wells, we learn, because syphilitics like to spit in them)
W.H. Auden and Louis Macneice, Letters from Iceland (amazingly winning blend of poetry--Auden's witty Letter to Lord Byron--and journal entries)
Eric Newby, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush (two misadventurers at large)
Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia (short poetic chapters on facets of Patagonia life)
All these books are beautifully written, as much works of art as travel narratives.
_______________________
Riverdale Park, Md.: Any good suggestions on educational and well-written books on wine or jazz (as separate topics)? I'm looking for historical and/or introductory material to these topics.
And, somewhat off the wall, but for any who have ever had their homes infiltrated by ants, much solace and beauty to be found in Italo Calvino's short story, "The Argentine Ant" (available in English translation in The Watcher & Other Stories), which I just recently read.
Nice review of the Feynman collection last weekend.
Michael Dirda: Thanks. Yes, the Calvino is a wonderful story. Consolation might also be found in the old classic, "Leiningen vs. the Ants," later made into a movie with Charlton Heston.
Wine--You migth start with Dionysus, a collection of essays and stories about wine, compiled by Clifton Fadiman. Wine books are as ubiquitous as Merlot. Andre Simon is a good primer, though out of date for vintages of the last 20 or 30 years.
Jazz--there are good books by LeRoi Jones, Leonard Feather, H. Royall Stokes, and Whitney Balliett. Your best bet, though, for a starter kit is the Smithsonian Guide to Jazz or whatever it's titled. There's also the Ken Burns series, with accompanying discs on individual artists.
_______________________
Washington, DC: How is Banville's The Sea? Odd that this year's Booker also had a fictional-kinda-true-story-about-an-author novel in contention that didn't win. I'm thinking, of course, of the pairing of Arthur and George with The Master. Both runners up are superb, I think. I liked the Line of Beauty also, and so am considering going for The Sea.
