I still can't let go of the ghost theme...

About a month back Maud linked to this Slate article on a 1907 memoir by Edmund Gosse, a memoir that could apparently teach recent memoirists a thing or two. The author of the piece notes that Gosse's memoir is the only of his books that is still in print, and the sadness of this statement, and the fact that I had never before heard of Edmund Gosse, made me think, again, of ghosts.

There is a category of books I think of as "ghost books": books that are still in print, but, for the most part, are not as widely read as they once were. It happens with lesser known foreign authors as the fashion for reading certain authors shifts from continent to continent, but it happens with secondary authors from every continent in every decade.

I have no insight into why one author falls behind the others, why his light fades while her light grows strong; it's a matter of popular taste. What's fascinating to me is that the ones who are still in print obviously have defenders — people who champion them, people who love them, and consider them worthy of dissemination. To prevent them from being lost in the ether.

I've participated to a certain extent with my championing of Louis Bromfield, who was a Pulitzer winner in his day, and quite popular, but whose fanbase today is largely restricted to farmers and Ohioans. Bromfield wouldn't be very popular if all of his books were still in print today, and I'm not even sure sometimes whether I even like his novels. Yet I feel a distinct connection to him which forces me to buy every book I find by him at The Strand. As if by somehow collecting everything he put on paper, I can pull the ghost free from his between-world shackles. (As you may know, this is mostly circumstantial.)

I wonder, though, if we champion ghost books not because they're great, but simply because they're relatively unknown. Like some obscure band you can only buy singles by on 7-inch in the back room of some tiny record shop in Liverpool. We feel hip for knowing the unknown, for having read the rarely read. Not classic, but cult classic.

But then I think about the ghost books I've enjoyed over the past few years, and their greatness is obvious: Bromfield's Pleasant Valley. Bruno Schulz's The Street of Crocodiles. Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman. Alisdair Gray's Lanark. Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived In the Castle*.

Many of these books have been championed by bloggers (or television shows), which renews their popularity momentarily. (Will Novel on Yellow Paper be next? via Pinky's Paperhaus) This select renewed interest, this last glimmer of fading light, is equally sad to me: sometimes it feels as if we're holding on to shadows.

But we are all fleeting, our footprints temporary. Holding on to shadows — the shadows of people or the shadows of books, the great shadows, the BEST shadows — is all we can do.

*The crime of the number of Jackson's books that have been allowed to slip out of print has been better conveyed by Jessa, who introduced me to Ms. Jackson's longer work. I would recommend The Road Through the Wall — oh you frightening, horrid little children.

I would love to write something beautiful, but time is short, and the King of projects looms. So I scour the internet for links, in the hopes of appeasing the little empty spot here that says "create post."

The Husband unfolded his paper today and pointed to this story about Joan Didion and friends touring on behalf of their dear friend, David Halberstam, who passed away last April in a car accident.

Ms. Didion said she had not yet had a chance to read the book, but “David himself thought it was his best work,” she said, “and I trust him.”

And isn't trust in a friend just a beautiful thing.

Later this evening, I stumbled across this article on Louis Bromfield, which mentioned his collaboration with Walt Disney on Ferdinand the Bull. A story, at its essence, about pacifism. And that's something beautiful, as well.

In Detroit, Wood finds herself sneaking into hospitals to discover the sex of her child. What can be more beautiful than the restless, late-night heartbeat of someone growing inside you?

It's a wonderful day when the rest of the world writes beautiful things for you.

News of a My Bloody Valentine reunion. Two songs on repeat: "Challengers" from the new New Pornographers album ("Yes I know it was late, we were greeting the sun before long"), and "Dark Horse" by Bowerbirds (thanks to Wood from Sweet Juniper for an introduction to the latter).

A package arriving from Brahms/Mount, making everything serene and comfy and entirely more blankety. Having farmer's market peaches and half & half for dessert (we're out of cream).

Discovering this literary map of Ohio, which includes good ol' Louie. This Gallery feature on Thomas Allen at The Morning News. People who see the positive side of things.

My sister calling me from a bicycle, laughing at the absurdity of words.

The word count being devoted to the book review controversy on the internet and elsewhere is steadily rising, and, in an attempt to shine a light on all parties involved, the New York Times has run an interesting article on literary blogs, which features several of the blogs I read daily. (via Maud*)

In the midst of the hoopla, and considering any opinions I might throw at the debate would have the weight of aerogel, I'll link instead to this great old (1924!) review I stumbled across of the Bromfield book I'm reading, The Green Bay Tree. I appreciate the bluntness of an entire paragraph titled "The Significance." And the headline: "You will not soon forget John, Julia, Lily, Irene"... Too much!

I shouldn't really be reading Bromfield; I should have been inspired by PEN to pick up Tatyana Tolstaya, Natsuo Kirino, Dorota Maslowska, Massimo Carlotto. But Bromfield has once again charmed me with his first few pages - the brick house swallowed by wistaria vines, surrounded by wrought iron fences and factories just beyond, a woman returning home in thick Parisian veils and furs, wet snowflakes, dovecotes, ashtrays, enameled boxes, a cake-loving dog named Fifi and a red-cheeked farm girl - so Bromfield it will be.

Tolstaya, however, is on deck.

*Maud's post also features a photograph from the great Berenice Abbott, whose work serves as a fantastic time machine. This one is a favorite of mine. Also... this store window.

Not too long back, I received a comment from one of my twelve readers telling me that I have helped him discover some new authors. I thought that was a high compliment, but I think it's only fair that I give credit where credit is due. Following is a list of a few authors I have recently been enjoying, and the people who helped me discover them. (Or, in many instances, my first memories of discovering them for myself.)

• Shirley Jackson. This one is all Jessa. I had read "The Lottery" in school, but I had never explored her novels until Jessa wrote a post on Bookslut saying "If you're not reading Shirley Jackson, you should really rectify that." And so I did. (I'm not usually this suggestible; I happened to be looking for something new to read at the time.) And now I'm addicted to collecting her little paperbacks from the fifties and sixties. When I was in Seattle, I found a paperback of Come Along With Me lurking on the floor of a tiny used bookshop in Capitol Hill, and snapped it up. "$2.85? Bargain." "I can charge you more if you want..." My favorite Jackson moment? Apart from her scaring the bejeezus out of me so much so with The Haunting of Hill House that I screamed when a truck rattled a manhole cover outside our apartment, I loved reading her account of giving birth to her third child, smoking in the taxi on the way to the hospital. Ah, the fifties.


• Rupert Thomson. And the award goes to: Maud Newton. If she hadn't raved endlessly about the guy, I might not have noticed Divided Kingdom, which seemed to be unfortunately ignored by the award givers of 2005. And if I hadn't have had her encouragement, I probably would have put down Air & Fire about midway through. But I trust her when she says that it's worth it, and the submarine scene alone was indeed worth it.


• Scarlett Thomas. The End of Mr. Y is the perfect example of what book blogs are capable of in terms of word-of-mouth promotion. I had glanced at books by Scarlett Thomas before, but never felt a real incentive to read one until I heard Ed, Maud, and Mark raving about this one. Good thing I paid attention, too - it was one of the best books I read last year.


• Magnus Mills. In addition to giving me life, my mother also gave me a bus-driver-turned-author named Magnus Mills. She also gave me Rebecca and The Good Earth, along with many others that she's loved and passed along, but Magnus Mills was the one that sticks out, the most bizarre, the one I began to collect. He's also one of few authors that The Husband and I both read on a regular basis. (The Husband, it should be mentioned here, introduced me to two other treats: Patrick Suskind and Adrian Mole.)


• Louis Bromfield. And from the other side of my parentage, I get Louis Bromfield. I have detailed the history of my family's relationship to Malabar Farm here, and Bromfield's books were a permanent fixture on the shelf in the home where I grew up, but I largely ignored this author until we visited the farm a few years back. Dad offered his collection of Bromfield books to borrow from, but I was too afraid to spoil the lovely green leather covers, and so bought an old copy of Pleasant Valley for myself, slowly beginning to answer the question of where I come from.


• Inga Abele. She writes like Marilynne Robinson (I can say that with confidence now, having read Marilynne Robinson), and I've attempted to translate several of her stories, stories originally handed to me by my host mother in Latvia. Sometimes there's nothing better than someone handing you a book and saying not "you must read this" or "this is the best thing ever," but, instead, "I really liked this; I think you might too."

There are authors whose origins are unknown to me. They just appeared on my bookshelf one day, suddenly a part of my life.

• Joan Didion. I'm still trying to figure out how I missed out on reading Joan Didion until just over a year ago. This makes no sense to me. I can even remember owning a copy of Political Fictions, but not ever reading it, and passing it along unread. Isn't it funny, the things that pass right under our noses and we never even realize that they're meant for us?


• Victor Pelevin. All I can remember about my discovery of Victor Pelevin is that I started reading him around the same time my sister accused me of reading only Russians. I don't know where she got that idea, as I had to admit I had only ever read Master and Margarita and a few Gogol stories, but I quickly rectified the situation by devouring every Pelevin novel or short story I could get my hands on, among Lermontov and Tolstoy and Sorokin and Petrushevskaya.


• Haruki Murakami. I read a Murakami story while lying by a pool in L.A. in 2002. I'm convinced I had read a Murakami novel before then, but that moment of reading a Murakami story while lying by the poolside sticks with me more than the discovery of this author.


• David Mitchell. I initially pulled Ghostwritten off the shelves because its cover reminded me of a My Bloody Valentine album cover. Who in turn were introduced to me by a guy named Zack, and who I happen to be listening to as I type this. It makes sense that one of my favorite bands should help me discover one of my favorite authors. Thank you, Mr. or Ms. Cover Designer.

It's interesting to think back on how these authors came into my life. And how different I'd be without having read them. There's something marvelous and exciting about discovering an author for the first time, reading that first paragraph, craving more, and more, and falling head over heels in love.

Today Jessa is on a similar wavelength, writing about sharing books with a friend. She mentions Tatyana Tolstaya (no idea where I discovered her either, though I read The Slynx a few years ago and loved it) and points us to these fantastic Russian covers by the artist Oleg Paschenko, whose other slightly disturbing illustrations can be found here. Tolstaya will be taking part in the PEN World Voices Festival later this month.

Tolstaya is currently being published by NYRB, whose recent offerings have really impressed me. I didn't pay them much attention before, but I certainly will be paying attention now. Tingle Alley also takes note of additions to the list.

One more link? Oh, go on then. A fan of old black and white films makes his own video for my favorite My Bloody Valentine song, "Cigarette in yr Bed." Bonus: the live version, at ULU, 1990.