Recently, a friend asked me how I was able to read all the things I featured in my Friday newsletter.
He asked if this newsletter was a collective effort? Is there a panel of like-minded readers who have consumed a lot of material and then sent me their recommendations?
I have no assistant, no committee, I told him. Suggestions from others are not included unless I actually read them. The only secret is that I love to read, I read all the time and I do it fast.
It’s the only superpower I’ve ever possessed. I am not a writer, thinker or runner. No sport comes naturally to me. And anything that involves math is always a nerve-wracking struggle.
But reading just happens. Usually, it’s the literary equivalent of snacks, quickly consumed and forgotten. Every once in a while, though, I feel like a new device suddenly snaps into place in my brain, triggering motion useful for better understanding the world and the people in it. It’s one of the best feelings.
So, yes, what you get from this newsletter is really me: a list of things I’ve read that are either meaningful or delicious literary snacks — with all the helpful hints, eclectic or flawed that process can create.
(My preferences are particularly flawed when it comes to Kazuo Ishiguro, many of you have informed me. My God, I caused outrage a few weeks ago when he said his job was not for me! I’m sure Ishiguro will be pleased to know that he has such passionate defenders, but I suspect he won’t mind that I don’t connect with his novels — he doesn’t write As an author who wants to please everyone, by which I mean the highest possible praise.)
Finally, The Interpreter is a column about understanding the world, and I understand the world by reading. Sharing my reading list is one way of inviting you to understand it with me.
My extracurricular reading this week turned out to be very spy-focused. I’m not sure what that says about my worldview or mental state, but I regret nothing:
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Literary editor’s death Robert Gottlieb take me back”The art of editing” by Larisa MacFarquhar in The Paris Review. She spoke with Gottlieb and several of the authors he edited, including spy novelist John le Carré. His contract for “Perfect Spy” required Gottlieb to take him out to lunch, in retaliation for Gottlieb’s stinginess with book advances. “I went to New York, and there was Bob,” le Carré said, “a rare sight in a suit, and we went to a restaurant he knew. He ate extremely frugal, drinks nothing, and looks at me with cynical eyes as I look at the menu.”
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I like too this piece on John Phipps’ John le Carré in the LA Review of Books. On the surface, it is a critique of the memoirs of one of le Carré’s former lovers, as well as a collection of letters by le Carré himself, but it is actually about le Carré’s skills and limitations with as a writer. “Fluency is a gift he cannot overcome,” writes Phipps, “which creates both pleasure and weakness in his novels.” (We should all have such defects, mate.)
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Then I read this Great writing by Rosa Lyster in Gawker about le Carré’s female characters, most specifically Lady Ann, the beautiful and unfaithful wife of his most famous protagonist, George Smiley. I was overjoyed to finally find someone who was prepared for George-Ann’s extremely special marriage. Once you scrape off the thick scum of le Carré’s perversion, their pairing is fascinatingly strange.
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All of that, naturally, brought me back to my roots. by Le Carre”Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is one of my favorites, and I aimlessly map out the chapters as I reread, tracing the alternating shifts in perspective that set the pace of the plot.
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That pairs well with “A spy among friends,” by Ben Macintyre, which I picked up after a reader recommendation a few weeks ago. It tells the story of Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent who was able to inspire the main antagonist of “Tinker, Tailor”. The book shows how Philby exploited Britain’s reflexive classism and its intelligence services. In the end, it becomes a portrait of how an era drags on for so long, and then comes to an abrupt, traumatic end.
Reader feedback: Books you recommend
Kristie Miller, a reader in Washington, DC, recommends “Snobbery: American Version” by Joseph Epstein:
I read it quite a while ago, but since you asked for books on snobbery I miss it. Epstein told me about the many secret snobs I raised. (Submit this suggestion could be one.) He admits that the best writers on snobbery are novelists.
Nicholas Munger, a reader in Charlottesville, VA, recommends “All sinners shed blood” by SA Crosby:
Mr. Crosby is without a doubt the most powerful, unique, authentic and engaging voice in the genre sometimes referred to as “Southern Noir” or “Southern Gothic”. His main character in this novel, Sheriff Titus Crown, made an indelible impression and set the standard for crime fiction that followed.
What are you reading?
Thank you to everyone who has written to let me know about what you are reading. Please keep submitting!
I want to hear about what you have read (or seen or heard) about snobs and snobs. Thanks to your suggestions, my snob summer is going well. But I want more!
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