Sahara Unveiled

Well, I was going to write about this book, but it's been summarized much more capably than I could here. Not that I read this blog, just found it when searching on the title to confirm the spelling of William Langewiesche's name. I should investigate this blog a bit... Anyway, I'll forgo my own description of it. Suffice to say, I enjoyed it, and it left a big impression on me: Africa is a hard, troublesome, difficult place.

But I can talk about my experiences around reading the book. I'd seen it in the living room, and picked it up and put it in my bag when we were packing to take Nick to Philadelphia. Even at the time I knew I probably wouldn't have time or inclination to read it while we were there, but I did read it after we returned. And...

It wasn't until page 150 that I realized that I'd read it before.

At that point my memories came back. I'd enjoyed the book— his writing, his observances, his attitude— a lot. My impressions on rereading it were substantially the same as when I'd read it the first time, ten years earlier. But I hadn't noticed.

I was rather taken aback, and sat in wonderment as this all sank in. Years ago, in my twenties, I'd recognize within half a page that I'd read something before. Granted, I hadn't read quite so much at that point in my life. But the contrast between then and now bothered me. How could I read so far into the book and not realize that it wasn't the first time I'd read it? Is this what aging does?

Now, this post isn't really about aging and what it does, but about my distressing tendency to notice events and relate them to aging. It may be that the book just hadn't made much of an impression on me up to that point (this is where he describes the family with the 5-year-old boy taking a car trip into the desert, getting lost, and dying, slowly, of thirst). So, maybe I was just not engaged enough with the book until that point for it to make enough impression on me to remember it ten years later. And then, part of me responds "yes, but that wouldn't have made a difference when I was 25." So I argue with myself about whether something is or is not a sign of aging, and whether it really matters all that much. It's a bit troubling, and part of it is wondering to what extent I will inherit my father's proclivity to worry about himself, his anxiety about losing his mental abilities— and, well, his actual loss of mental acuity.

Sheesh. I'm 51. There is something about turning 50 that makes it no longer possible to ignore the fact that you're aging, which I had managed to do during my 40's. But I'm not old. Am I?

More on Jonathan Lethem

Salon has an interview with him too. Guess he's on a book tour.

Also read recently

I'll write notes on these eventually, some I read almost a month ago.

Read:
"Kill All Your Darlings"— Luc Sante
"His Master's Voice"— Stanislaw Lem
"Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone"— Mark Zwonitzer with Charles Hirshenberg
"The Gatekeepers"—Jacques Steinberg
"Sahara Unveiled: A Journey Across the Desert"— William Langewiesche

Reading:
"The Philosophical Baby"— Alison Gopnik
"Outliers"— Malcolm Gladwell
"Irrational Exuberance (2nd Ed.)"— Robert J. Shiller

Jonathan Lethem

Recently read one of his books, checked it out from the local library— "The wall of the sky, the wall of the eye," a collection of short stories. Usual Lethem; I don't know anyone who does quite what he does. The things he writes tend to be near-parodies of genre fiction, with some often counter-factual twist. Yet they actually work in their genre&mdash "Gun, with occasional music" is a very readable detective novel that just happens to feature a kangaroo. Thinking about it more, 'genre fiction' isn't quite the right term, it's a little too pejorative. Perhaps 'styled fiction', something that has a recognizable flow and mood, better suits what I'm trying to say. The things he writes are recognizably similar to other novels and stories you've read, and allude to their conventions, yet they're sui generis. These short stories are a good introduction to his work.

I'll describe some I especially liked. "The Happy Man" is a story of a man who literally dies and goes to hell, returning for brief, unpredictable, and not particularly welcome visits with his family. Together with with his son he discovers the source of his childhood daemons, and eases his hell just a little bit. "The Hardened Criminals" is about a prison literally built of men turned to concrete, whose brains live on as robotic automatons inside their heads. "Light and the Sufferer" is about a man's failed attempt to save his brother from himself, accompanied by one of the speechless dog-like aliens that are drawn to the self-destructive. There's nothing breezy about these tales, no elbow in the ribs or knowing wink, they're serious, hard-hitting fare.

It's not always this intense. "Five Fucks" is about two people who can't keep apart to save themselves— or the world, which changes around them each time they sleep together. He takes the whole notion of a "doomed relationship" and sends it careening into space. This story succeeds on several levels; humorous, profound, quirky, and sad all in a jumble. He doesn't force the humor, it just flows from the situation, and he's happy to let it just slide by, only nodding at it from time to time in his choice of words or phrase or image. (I was especially tickled by the statue in the town that the Mayor ends up standing under before the world turns again).

As it turns out Mr. Lethem has a piece in this week's New Yorker, and is also interviewed in an article in last week's Time. He seems to have crossed over the line and made it into the public eye, which should be good for his book sales, and maybe for him. His popular books have a little less of the dark edge and more humor, but that's ok. I just hope he keeps writing cool stuff, looking for and finding that edge.