Feeling homesick for language...
I went on a hunt for used bookstores in Taipei - the latest issue of Discover Taipei has a good write-up of some of the local gems. Started at Yong Kang Street after having lunch at my mom's favorite restaurant in Taipei - the name of which sounds phonetically like "Good Eats", so when you've eaten at this particular place, people will pun on the name and ask you if it was good eating at good eats. It was a nice, simple hot meal - and very likely one of the first meals I've had that has been free of MSG which is used liberally here. After Good Eats, I spotted a used record store and wandered down into the basement where it turned out to be a used bookstore with a decent selection of artbooks and magazines and 2 bookshelves worth of English/European language titles. Mostly drama, teaching English, composition, and a shelf of bodice ripping Harlequin romances from what appeared to be the 60s or 70s judging by the cover designs. One title particularly jumped out at me, "Jilted!" Hardly any poetry except for 2 duplicate copies of Phillip Larkin. Among these haphazard titles, I found a book by Eileen Chang translated into English. Chang Ailing was one of my favorite contemporary female Chinese writers when I was in undergrad comparative lit class and so I snagged this 1960s edition for 50NT, a steal.
Headed back to Shida Street near the university to then check out Grandma Nitti's cafe which houses a very small used book selection managed by an expat. It makes sense that independent bookstores would crop up around the unis - the perfect place for foreign students and scholars to unload unwanted books. Grandma Nitti's had mostly a NY Times Bestseller sort of collection - Michael Crichton, Graham Greene... buried amidst the titles I pulled out Will Chris Baer's Penny Dreadful, the sequel to Kiss Me, Judas which I still need to read. I decided to buy it because Chris is legendary around Naropa and was dating a girlfriend of mine at the time that novel #2 came out. She raved about his work and I have always wanted to come back to his work. Well, I must say, that the tone of the book is something I've been trying to leave behind. How to describe it - futuristic, sci-fi, Blade Runneresque noir set in LoDo with lots of sex and violence. The structure of the book is however interesting, broken into sections named after the characters and told from their perspectives which jump cut very quickly.
I've been thinking a lot about James Frey's work which I read in the week before leaving the States. As anyone who follows The Smoking Gun, CNN or the NY Times knows, Frey's in some deep shit re: his bestseller A Million Little Pieces. The Smoking Gun contends that Frey embellished/lied about his police record and is dragging his history into the light. The book is a pretty amazing read and I don't think it should matter how much was truth vs. fiction. His publisher made a marketing decision re: whether to put the book on the market as fiction vs. non-fiction. That does not change the credibility of the narrative or the quality of writing. The book weighs in at over 400 pages and could have been trimmed in places. I felt that the trying to look at one's self in the eye was a bit trite and due to Frey's writing style, it is difficult at times to follow who is speaking - a criticism that is being made of My Friend Leonard, Frey's latest as well, but their are many many outstanding and heart-rending passages in this book that transcend all of its weaknesses - the root canal scene without anesthesia and the narrative of Lily's betrayal by her boyfriend which drove her to Hazelden. I borrowed this book from my best friend, who after reading it, apologized to her mother for not understanding what she had gone thru with her addiction. The AA support group scenes brought up many memories for her. For me, I was deeply affected at James' courage to face his rage towards his parents and in general and to really deal with this issue which had controlled him for so much of his life. The catalog of his "sins" is an exercise which I think I could definitely benefit from and is on the list of things to do.
Headed back to Shida Street near the university to then check out Grandma Nitti's cafe which houses a very small used book selection managed by an expat. It makes sense that independent bookstores would crop up around the unis - the perfect place for foreign students and scholars to unload unwanted books. Grandma Nitti's had mostly a NY Times Bestseller sort of collection - Michael Crichton, Graham Greene... buried amidst the titles I pulled out Will Chris Baer's Penny Dreadful, the sequel to Kiss Me, Judas which I still need to read. I decided to buy it because Chris is legendary around Naropa and was dating a girlfriend of mine at the time that novel #2 came out. She raved about his work and I have always wanted to come back to his work. Well, I must say, that the tone of the book is something I've been trying to leave behind. How to describe it - futuristic, sci-fi, Blade Runneresque noir set in LoDo with lots of sex and violence. The structure of the book is however interesting, broken into sections named after the characters and told from their perspectives which jump cut very quickly.
I've been thinking a lot about James Frey's work which I read in the week before leaving the States. As anyone who follows The Smoking Gun, CNN or the NY Times knows, Frey's in some deep shit re: his bestseller A Million Little Pieces. The Smoking Gun contends that Frey embellished/lied about his police record and is dragging his history into the light. The book is a pretty amazing read and I don't think it should matter how much was truth vs. fiction. His publisher made a marketing decision re: whether to put the book on the market as fiction vs. non-fiction. That does not change the credibility of the narrative or the quality of writing. The book weighs in at over 400 pages and could have been trimmed in places. I felt that the trying to look at one's self in the eye was a bit trite and due to Frey's writing style, it is difficult at times to follow who is speaking - a criticism that is being made of My Friend Leonard, Frey's latest as well, but their are many many outstanding and heart-rending passages in this book that transcend all of its weaknesses - the root canal scene without anesthesia and the narrative of Lily's betrayal by her boyfriend which drove her to Hazelden. I borrowed this book from my best friend, who after reading it, apologized to her mother for not understanding what she had gone thru with her addiction. The AA support group scenes brought up many memories for her. For me, I was deeply affected at James' courage to face his rage towards his parents and in general and to really deal with this issue which had controlled him for so much of his life. The catalog of his "sins" is an exercise which I think I could definitely benefit from and is on the list of things to do.
posted by Shin Yu Pai at 12:35 PM
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