What if Harry Potter ended the way The Sopranos did? Click here to find out. Complete with audio.

Yesterday I watched Oprah interview Cormac McCarthy. I haven’t read his books; I started All the Pretty Horses and got bored of it pretty quickly. However, since everyone is going on about how dark The Road is, I was expecting McCarthy to be a grizzled old man straight out of some Hawthorne novel. Instead, he was a sweet, soft-spoken older man who doesn’t seem to care about fame or glory all that much. That baffled Oprah, who apparently has only met writers who want to be on best seller lists. “Boy, you are a different kind of author,” she said at some point.

What I liked the most about the interview was how McCarthy seemed aware that she expected him to act as a role model or moral leader, and wouldn’t take the bait. When she asked him if he was passionate about writing–Oprah seems to think everyone should follow their passions in life–he said, “Passionate is a pretty fancy word for it.” That made me laugh and laugh.

The whole Oprah book club issue is complicated. I am probably more turned off by the elitist crap that comes out every time she picks a book than by anything she does–although I’ll admit that The Secret is pretty nauseating. But people act like she always picks bad books, something I think past picks like Faulkner, Tolstoy, and Toni Morrison would disagree with.

In the end, her book club is our culture’s manifestation of a very old issue–the division between high and low art. And while that is a question that may never be answered, generally speaking, I approve of Oprah’s book club. I like when people promote reading, and very few people do it as successfully as Oprah does.

And anyway, I really like her next pick–Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, which is an excellent book.

I had picture to put up of a new park I discovered, but my computer needs a driver or something, so I can’t get them off the camera. Since I’m on deadline, I will have to post them tomorrow.

In the meantime: Easter Everywhere, a memoir by Darcey Steinke, asks this controversial question: What if my abiding sense of misery isn’t due to abuse or balky neurotransmission, but to the absence of God in my life, to an unfulfilled relationship with my own divinity, as vouchsafed to me by the Creator?

At least, that is according to a New York Times review by Stephen Metcalf, who seemed to like the book:

Casting aside the language of biological sickness or talk-therapy self-pity for the language of spiritual sickness, a writer no longer needs to up the ante with increasingly extravagant examples of self-degradation. True, Steinke hits some of the familiar stations of the memoir cross: as a young girl, she ostentatiously reads “Mein Kampf” to provoke her elders; as a young woman, she finds herself drawn to boys who are “aloof and nihilistic”; and she eventually becomes a divorced mother badly in need of her scrips. But she nails the central question — of her memoir and perhaps of her life — with an extraordinary quote from Simone Weil. “One has only the choice between God and idolatry,” Weil wrote. “If one denies God … one is worshiping some things of this world in the belief that one sees them only as such, but in fact, though unknown to oneself imagining the attributes of Divinity in them.” Hence the title “Easter Everywhere.

Now I want to check this book out.

Kurt Vonnegut died last night. This it sad. Until yesterday, he was one of the few living writers who had the legendary status of writers like Kafka or Fitzgerald in my mind. His work is the best bridge I know to get teenage boys who read nothing but science fiction to read literature. His books are funny, vivid, weird, imaginative, and deal with some of the biggest questions of our age–God and science, war, the destruction of the planet, etc.

Not too long ago, I read The Sirens of Titan and was impressed with the quality of Vonnegut’s imagination. Written in 1959, it has such vivid descriptions of Mars and Saturn and Titan that it made me wonder if we haven’t lost something with all our current technological understanding of the solar system.

I haven’t read all of Vonnegut’s books, but as luck would have it, I recently got a lot of them. I was going to read something post-20th century for once next, but I think I’m going to put that aside for a bit and read his work instead.

ETA: I was going to put up a recent Bookworm interview I heard with Vonnegut, but I got distracted by this YouTube video where he talks about getting started as a writer:

I had a family and I wasn’t making nearly enough money to support the family. So I started writing short stories on weekend. And there was an enormous magazine industry at that time which paid very high prices for stories and they needed lots of them. Saturday Evening Post published five a week, Collier’s published five a week, Liberty Post published five a week and they paid tons of money for them. And I began that way and I wrote one and the Saturday Evening Post bought it and paid me one-eighth what I was making at General Electric a year. And so I wrote another one and they paid me more. In a period of a few months, I had made more money than General Electric was prepared to pay me all year. I had money piled up.

Ok, now I really am depressed.

This is possibly the most offensive thing I have ever seen. I honestly thought it was a joke until I saw it from two reputable sources:

Jane too plain for publishers

Staff and agencies
Friday March 23, 2007

After being made over as a pin-up for the big screen, Jane Austen is has now being dolled up by a publisher. Becoming Jane, the recent quasi-biopic, saw her portrayed by the very glamorous Anne Hathaway. Now Wordsworth editions has decided the only fully authenticated image of Austen is “off-putting” and have Photoshopped her into something more appealing.Helen Trayler, the publisher’s managing director, said: “She was not much of a looker. Very, very plain. Jane Austen wasn’t very good looking. She’s the most inspiring, readable author, but to put her on the cover wouldn’t be very inspiring at all. It’s just a bit off-putting.

“I know you are not supposed to judge a book by its cover. Sadly people do. If you look more attractive, you just stand out more. Sadly, we do live in a very shallow world and people do judge by appearance.”

Publishers have traditionally used a portrait of Austen by her sister Cassandra, which hangs in the National Portrait Gallery. This portrait has been now been digitally adjusted to remove her nightcap, give her make-up and hair extensions for a new edition of a memoir by Austen’s nephew.

Ms Trayler has also commissioned a new watercolour of the author, now the subject of the film Becoming Jane, to feature on the cover of a “deluxe” collection of Austen’s novels.

Janeites seem resigned to the new look. Patrick Stokes, of the Jane Austen Society, told The Times: “She’s not a goddess. She has no copyright. It’s just what happens when someone is so popular, and if it brings her to a different readership then that’s good news.”

Story here and here.

What is wrong with the publishing industry? Does anyone there even care about words and books anymore? Let’s put aside the obvious problem of photoshopping a picture of a dead woman–Just the concept that Jane Austen’s looks should enter into whether a book about her would sell 190 years after her death is absurd. Austen’s books have not only survived all these years, they are avidly read today by a passionate following and are still being made into movies and plays, all with Jane Austen being “plain.” You know why? Because it doesn’t matter what Jane Austen looks like! It’s her words, the fruits of her mind, that interest people. No one wants to have sex with her (well, probably some people do, but you know…), they want to read her work!

How ridiculously offensive that publishers think they need to improve on Austen’s looks to sell books by and about her. It’s sexist and demeaning. If this were a male writer, no one would even be considering this option. Feminism has really failed if we live in an age where great women writers are actually being judged on their looks by book publishers 200 years after they have died.

Old, hideous, ugly, pimply, big-nosed, flat-chested original Jane

Jane after her sexy new make-over

Gawker pointed me to Granta’s list of Best Young American Novelists. Apparently, the last time this was done was in 1996, a list that…

anointed such under-35 literary stars as Jonathan Franzen, Lorrie Moore, Mona Simpson, Edwidge Danticat, Sherman Alexie, and Jeffrey Eugenides, while also selecting a few who slunk into obscurity, and neglecting to select several—including one, A.M. Homes, who was a judge for this year’s selection—who have gone on to critical and, sometimes, commercial acclaim.

The new list includes people like ZZ Packer, Jonathan Safran Foer and wife, and Gary Shteyngart, as well as a lot of people I heaven’t heard of. You can see a short bio of each winner here.

Lists like this rub me the wrong way. There’s just something so elitist and strange about them in general. And I don’t know how I feel about praising people’s accomplishments simply because they are young.

Also, a lot of these people don’t live/weren’t born in the U.S.

Even odder: Most of them haven’t published novels yet.

As part of Copperfield’s Reading Series, I saw the poet Billy Collins read tonight at the Luther Burbank Center in Santa Rosa.

It was actually the second time I have seen Billy Collins read. I like him. Not only are his poems entertaining and accessible, he is an great reader. He has a good sense of timing and a self-deprecating, gentle manner that reminds me of Bob Newhart. He’s the sort of person whose every observation is somehow interesting to listen to–which is probably part of why he is such a good poet.

Anyway, the crowd was ecstatic to have him, clapping at every pause and audibly saying “awww” or “hmmm” after some of the poems. It’s nice to see people that excited about poetry, even if my friends and I were the youngest people there who weren’t with their moms or getting extra credit for class.

Since it is Valentine’s Day, Collins read several love-related poems. He didn’t read my favorite of his poems, Undressing Emily Dickinson, but he did read his hilarious play on love imagery, Litany, which I pasted for you below. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Litany

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine…
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general’s head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman’s tea cup.
But don’t worry, I’m not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and–somehow–the wine.

– Billy Collins

Kara Jesella and Marisa Meltzer, former writers from Sassy Magazine, are publishing a book called How Sassy Changed My Life: A Love Letter to the Greatest Teen Magazine of All Time. Apparently, the book will discuss Sassy’s rise and fall from 1988 to 1994.

I was in high school during the end of Sassy’s heyday–1991-1995. A friend introduced me to the magazine and I quickly became a subscriber. I loved it. For one thing, the magazine was spot-on when it came to pop culture. They had Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love on the cover, they had advice columns written by Billy Corgan, and they printed hilariously sarcastic interviews like this one with Tiffani Amber-Theissen from Saved By the Bell, which basically implies that she’s an idiot. An excerpt:

I ask if she [Tiffani] wants to attend a real, actual college. “Yeah. I’d like to major in English literature,” she says enthusiastically. I ask who her favorite English writer is. “Oh, Maya Angelou!” she bellows. “She is great,” I say, nodding my head, “but she’s from St. Louis.” Tiffani is silent. “I know, but I’m just trying to think of somebody,” she sniffs. I press on. She says she likes a lot of Shakespeare’s lesser-known works. Like what? “Like Hamlet,” she proclaims excitedly. Oh, I hadn’t heard of that one.

Beyond all that, Sassy was informative. One article I read explained how to drink alcohol. See, Sassy didn’t bother trying to convince kids not to drink. Instead, they explained how to drink responsibly by taking you through how you feel when you have a few alcoholic beverages and how to know when to stop. I didn’t drink at that age and I wasn’t going to start by reading an article–kids are not that dumb, people–but it was fascinating to be told the truth about how alcohol affects you.

Sassy was full of stuff like that. Another article went over the ins-and-outs of kissing, which was extremely useful at the time, believe me. And that’s why the magazine was so cool: It didn’t patronize or lie to me. And although somtimes I was annoyed by the insider stuff, like how the writers would interrupt each others’ columns and use their first names like I was supposed to know who they were, I can’t deny that I wanted to work for Sassy. In fact, I bet most Sassy readers wanted to work there. After all, what teenage girl wouldn’t want a job that requires living in New York and writing about pop culture and celebrities the way we all want to write about them–raving about the good stuff, snarking about the bad?

Most of all, Sassy prized individualism. They put girls in the magazine simply because they were interesting; girls of all different colors and shapes who had their own style and defined interests. The message was do your own thing, be strong, be interesting, use your brain and your talent and explore who you are as an individual. Lots of magazines try to give teenage girls that message, but Sassy actually communicated it to their audience. And that was inspirational.

Then the magazine was shut down. It’s no wonder, really, with articles like, “My Brother’s Gay. Big Whoop” and “One American President’s Lame Drug War.” It was sold to someone else and one day, I picked up an issue of Sassy and found that it was like any other teen magazine out there–generic, dull, and vapid. I quickly lost interest.

To this day, Sassy remains one of my all-time favorite magazines. And all those articles I read still pop up every now and then. The other day I was putting my hair up, and I realized it looked like a Sassy cover shot from a prom issue. On it, a girl’s hair was pulled up in a sloppy grungy way, and then covered with white rosebuds. As a 16-year-old, it seemed downright radical to have sloppy hair for prom, but I also thought it looked pretty cool. As an adult, looking at a similar style (sans rosebuds) in the mirror, I thought my hair looked really sloppy–but I also thought it looked pretty cool.

Do you think people would be as fascinated with what Famously! Reclusive! Writer! Thomas Pynchon looks like if they knew that he is a perfectly ordinary-looking middle-aged man who wears red baseball caps? (Or was 10 years ago anyway.)

Based on this guy’s obsessive analyzing a short video clip of Pynchon walking down the street, I guess not.

Pynchon’s new book came out this month. I’m not likely to read it. I’m just being realistic here: I still haven’t read Gravity’s Rainbow and only got one-third of the way through Mason and Dixon. However, The Crying of Lot 49 still remains one of my favorite books.

Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

Have you noticed how Barnes & Noble is selling its own versions of the classics? Brilliant business decision: Get old literature that is past copyright so BN doesn’t have to pay writers, publish the books themselves to cut out that pesky middleman called “publishers,” and distribute the books exclusively in their own bookstores, which happen to be all over the country. Oh, and as an added bonus, drop the cover price so consumers are more likely to buy it through BN than those pesky independent bookstores or legitimate publishers. Yay lots of profits for Barnes & Noble!

Also, from this quiz in the New York Times:

16. Bound galleys of “My Kind of Place,” Susan Orlean’s most recent nonfiction collection, were distributed to the media with the title “Homewrecker” on them. The title was eighty-sixed at the last minute because:

a. Barnes & Noble didn’t like it
b. Orlean’s editor didn’t like it
c. Orlean didn’t like it
d. Rick Moody didn’t like it

The answer is A.