If you're in Dickinson . . .

Stoxen Library’s “Celebration of Banned Books” week begins at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 17, with a panel discussion about the First Amendment and freedom of speech. The panel, moderated by DSU history professor Frank Varney and DSU political science professor Steven Doherty, features Jack McDonald, an attorney in Bismarck; Christine Kujawa, chair of the Intellectual Freedom committee of the North Dakota Library Association; and Kathy Cline, librarian from Beulah public schools.

In addition to a general discussion about the importance of the First Amendment in a free society, the panel will talk about specific incidents in which books have been challenged in North Dakota, including the 2008 decision to remove Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil from the Beulah High School library following complaints from parents that the “sinful” book “implants thought patterns that are absolutely against what we try to instill in our students here at Beulah High.”

The discussion, jointly sponsored by the Celebration of Banned Books committee and the Constitution Day committee, is slated to run for 60 minutes, with time for questions afterward, in Beck Auditorium on the DSU campus. Refreshments will be available.

Rita Ennen, director of Stoxen Library, said that the right to read is vital to a free society, adding, “We are very excited to hear from some North Dakota warriors in the fight against censorship.”

Other events for this year’s Celebration of Banned Books will include three “read outs” (public readings from challenged or censored books) and two book discussions. The “read outs” will be in Stoxen Library at 7 p.m. on Monday (Sept. 23) and at noon on Wednesday (Sept. 25) and Friday (Sept. 27).

The first book discussion, hosted by Kathy Hanna and Renae Ekstrand on Tuesday (Sept. 24), will cover Call of the Wild and a selection of children’s books, while the second, hosted by Ms. Ennen on Thursday (Sept. 26), will cover Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Both discussions will be in Stoxen Library at 7 p.m.

I thought this question in the New York Times was interesting: Should a novelist write reviews? Zoe Heller and Adam Kirsch argue “yes” because such conversation about literature is a way to show that it matters. Kirsch adds:

For all these writers [Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, Henry James], criticism was a way of understanding themselves, of discovering how they did and did not want to write. It was also a means of educating the public, preparing readers for the revolution in taste they wanted to sponsor. Perhaps a writer can’t be great without a touch of this kind of aggression, this intolerance of artistic error. At the very least, novelists who do risk writing criticism should know they’re in the best of company.

The ALA in Boston

For me, going to a conference is a blend of the professional and the recreational. For example, last May I attended the annual American Literature Association conference in Boston, one of my favorite cities, which gave me an opportunity to spend some time working (attending a few sessions in my field) and relaxing (going to museums and pubs).

As for working, the highlight was chairing a panel at the session devoted to the Charles Johnson Society, which focused on Ethelbert Miller’s wonderful blog “The E-Channel.” For a year, Ethelbert and Charles Johnson had a wide-ranging discussion about art, aesthetics, politics, and literature. I can’t possibly sum up this conversation, so I simply encourage you to check it out. You won’t regret it.

For relaxing, I had two highlights: Touring the sites around Harvard, which always makes me feel smarter, and spending an afternoon at the Museum of Fine Arts. I always love seeing, in person, a painting that I've admired for so many years.

My supper the first evening:

My hotel was just off Copley Square, the site of the Boston Marathon bombing a month earlier. A very moving tribute, including the shoes of all the runners, went up almost immediately.

Another moving memorial is is to the men of the 54th Massachusetts, an African American regiment in the Civil War, located on Boston Common. They are portrayed in the great movie Glory.

At the Museum of Fine Arts, I got to enjoy the special exhibit of samurai culture and some of my favorite Impressionist works, including this wonderful Renoir.

My colleagues (and friends) on the panel to discuss Charles Johnson: Julia Galbus, Ethelbert Miller, John Parks, and Marc Conner. I wrote a brief report for the Charles Johnson Society about the panel, which you can read below.

We (Marc Conner, Julia Galbus, John Parks, Ethelbert Miller, and I) convened at 5:10 yesterday, in a room at the Westin Copley, Boston, for a panel about the E-Channel. We had an audience of around a dozen, which isn’t bad for these sessions.

Marc led off with a presentation that introduced the E-Channel and explained how it functioned for a year. He made the interesting point that Charles Johnson has always been an experimental author, one unafraid to try new voices and styles, so the Q & A format that led to the essays shouldn’t be wholly unexpected. It’s simply a new “room,” he added, in the house of literature that Johnson's constructing.

Julia then followed with a presentation that described how the E-Channel exemplifies the “spiritual friendship,” the kalyanamitra, that Johnson shares with Ethelbert. She suggested that the informal conversations, along with the more scholarly discourses, could even serve as an example of ideal friendship.

Next, John spoke about how the E-Channel can offer some epistemological answers for problems of everyday life. He also spoke about how Johnson's thoughts about Martin Luther King Jr. offer insight into the great man’s beliefs.

Finally, Ethelbert wrapped up the session by outlining how he came up with the idea for the E-Channel and why he approached Johnson for a year-long dialogue. He was his usual hilarious self as he described the task that he’d set for himself of “mapping” the mind of Charles Johnson and his later attempts to catch him off guard with some of his questions. He added that Johnson always brought him to ground by reminding, “We’re doing serious business.”

After a few questions and comments from the audience, we concluded the session at 6:35.

Meeting Charles Johnson

Charles Johnson, winner of the National Book Award for Middle Passage, is one of my favorite writers. In philosophical, yet lyrical prose, he spins tales of 19^th- and 20^th-century America with a voice that captures readers from the very first pages. Although his work is extremely imaginative, it is often grounded solidly in American history—specifically the history of African Americans—and instructs even as it delights. A Buddhist theme is often a subtle undercurrent, but his novels and short stories never become didactic.

I first met Chuck in 1995 when he returned to Southern Illinois University, where I happened to be a Ph.D. student in English, to receive an honorary degree as a distinguished alumnus. (Chuck has a B.S. in Journalism and an M.A. in Philosophy from SIU.) Although I was aware of his name when the Alumni Association announced the award, I hadn’t read any of his work, so I headed to the library to check out his fiction. What I read—especially Oxherding Tale and Middle Passage—knocked me out. I bought a copy of the latter and then stood in line to meet him when he came to campus a few weeks later. I later bought copies of the rest of his novels and read and reread them.

At that point, I was more fan than scholar, but in 2002, after finishing my third book, I realized that Chuck had never been interviewed at length, and I decided I was the man for the job. I first queried Chuck (after all, if he wasn’t interested, there wasn’t any point to the project), and after he gave his enthusiastic approval, I found a home for the proposed book of interviews at the University of Washington Press, which was delighted to accept it since Chuck had been a professor at UW for nearly thirty years.

Chuck and I then had two years of email correspondence as I formally interviewed him and informally got to know him. I also found dozens of other interviews with him—mainly from literary journals—and secured reprint rights for them. In November 2004, UW Press published the book, Passing the Three Gates, and hosted a publication party for Chuck and myself in Seattle. That would be the first time I would meet him in person, and I have to confess that I was extremely nervous. After all, how often does one meet a certified genius? One with a Ph.D. in philosophy and a shelf full of literary prizes? But I found him to be just as warm and generous in person as he had been in his emails.

Over the years, in addition to keeping up by email, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet with Chuck a few times at various conferences. In 2005, in fact, he came to my home institution, Dickinson State University, to give a reading and meet with students. The photo below is from that evening.

If you haven’t yet read the works of Charles Johnson, then you really need to head to your local library or log into your amazon.com account and get started, for I promise that you will find his fiction to be extraordinary, and, maybe, he just might change your life as he changed mine.

What's in a name?

A number of studies show that a bottle of wine priced at $100 will taste better than a bottle priced at $5, even if the contents are identical. Similarly, a painting by an acknowledged master will get tens of millions of dollars, but the same work by anonymous might warrant $1 at a garage sale.

Well, the same principle applies in writing since a novel by J. K. Rowling will sell tens of millions of copies, yet (as the Times points out) the same book by unknown author Robert Gailbraith sells only a few thousand copies.

Of course, Rowling had to start out as an unknown, too, so it’s not impossible to rise, but it has to feel discouraging for beginning novelists.

Seamus Heaney is dead

The great poet Seamus Heaney has died.

Heaney's work is truly extraordinary. If you can read "Digging" without feeling moved, well, then you're not human.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance hear him read in person. He was scheduled to read at Southern Illinois University in the spring of 1995, but a few weeks before the appearance, he won the Nobel Prize and had to cancel because of a sudden crush of commitments. By the time he made his rescheduled reading a year or so later, I'd graduated.

Do some digging yourself with some of his poems.

And hoist a pint for Seamus tonight.

Slainte go saol agat,
Bean ar do mhian agat.
Leanbh gach blian agat,
is solas na bhflaitheas tareis antsail seo agat.

"Health for life to you,
A wife of your choice to you,
Land without rent to you,
A child every year to you,
And the light of heaven after this world for you."

House of Cards (Netflix)

House of Cards is the new Netflix original series, starring the great Kevin Spacey, based, loosely, on the original BBC series of the same name. Both versions are worth your time, especially if you like stories of political intrigue.

Although the first season of the American version is quite good, it had big shoes to fill, and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it falls a bit short, beginning with the name of its protagonist, Francis Underwood (Spacey), the Democratic Whip in the House of Representatives. While I realize that the name “Urquhart” (pronounced Ur-kurt) is rare in the United States, its harsh, guttural sound, with its implied malevolence, sets a tone in the BBC version that “Underwood” simply doesn’t have.

More significantly, however, the plot, particularly towards the end of this first season, has some wholly unconvincing twists that I won’t elaborate on here in case you see the show. The acting in the series, however, is consistently superb, beginning with Spacey’s performance, in which his character pretends to be obsequious toward the President but really plans to seize power at the first opportunity. Also outstanding is Robin Wright, who plays his wife and ally in his quest for power. Through her chilliness and narcissism, there’s a hint of vulnerability.

Both versions of the show are well worth your time, especially if you like your anti-heroes on the cynical side, but I especially hope that you’ll check out the BBC version. And if you think I’m being unpatriotic by preferring that series, I’ll just have to reply, “You might think very well that, but I couldn’t possibly comment.”

P.S.: Once you’ve seen the Netflix show, you’ll enjoy this parody, starring Spacey himself.

Why not major in English?

Adam Gropnik, writing on The New Yorker blog, surveys the recent articles attacking and defending the value of the humanities—specifically English majors—but then shrugs and says, “Why not?” He adds:

You choose a major, or a life, not because you see its purpose, which tends to shimmer out of sight like an oasis, but because you like its objects. A good doctor said to me, not long ago, “You really sort of have to like assholes and ear wax to be a good general practitioner”; you have to really like, or not mind much, intricate and dull and occasionally even dumb arguments about books to study English.

. . .

Even if we read books and talk about them for four years, and then do something else more obviously remunerative, it won’t be time wasted. We need the humanities not because they will produce shrewder entrepreneurs or kinder C.E.O.s but because, as that first professor said, they help us enjoy life more and endure it better. The reason we need the humanities is because we’re human. That’s enough.

Will you please be quiet, please?

I can only do one thing at a time, and I can’t do anything if it’s not quiet. George Prochnik, in an essay in the Times, has some interesting thoughts on this topic. As he notes, “The findings [in one recent study] were clear: even when people stayed asleep, the noise of planes taking off and landing caused blood pressure spikes, increased pulse rates and set off vasoconstriction and the release of stress hormones. Worse, these harmful cardiovascular responses continued to affect individuals for many hours after they had awakened and gone on with their days.”

How Brian Doyle became a writer

Brian Doyle offers some useful tips about how to become a writer in this brief essay in The American Scholar.