C-wod.com

Now that I’m firmly entrenched in post-graduate ennui for the foreseeable future, it’s probably about as good a time as any to start updating this thing again. I know, outside of the UK or Texas, people don’t really care about The Kooks or the Cowboys, respectively, which means you obviously have more literary interests. You know, books and stuff.

But first off, I should expound on a new joy in my life. I didn’t see it coming, for several reasons, and now that it’s here, I am as closed to excited as I, as a non-excitable kind of guy, can be. Relatively speaking. I’m referring to the new rock radio station here, 101.9 RXP. Apparently, contrary to rumors of its death, as well as the emergence of intelligent music dance music, rock ain’t quite dead yet, with RXP even replacing the requisite “smooth jazz” station that used to occupy 101.9 FM.

I never expected this kind of station around these parts. This is New York. People listen to lots of things—hip-hop and top 40 pop and reggaeton, and who knows what else—19th century opera, I guess. We already have three “rock” stations. Three’s company, right?

Also, I was always under the impression that every area needed a smooth jazz station to supply, if nothing else, inoffensively boring elevator music, but rock’s resurgence has swept easy listening aside in favor of classic and alternative RAWK. I know lots of parents who probably miss listening to smooth jazz while doing the Times crossword on weekends. I just can’t see them sitting down to The National and going about their business. That’s because listening to The National is all about introspection, contemplation, and post-punk surreality.

With all this in mind, I was pleasantly surprised that our new rock station includes so much indie-alternative rock. I know that K-Rock pretends to play alternative rock, but they play a decidedly mainstream and commercial variety from the catch-all genre. RXP is like listening to a Grey’s Anatomy soundtrack, throwing out Nada Surf singles in between Radiohead’s “Creep” and your mom’s least favorite U2 single. It’s great. Of course, if I have to hear “I Will Possess Your Heart” one more time on the radio, at Borders, or in Panera, I’m going to be upset. Very upset.

I guess I should start finding a new layout for this mess of a blog.

Most people create a summer reading list for one reason or another. I created my summer reading list, because I have so many books I haven’t read yet.

Summer reading list:
You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
The History of Love by Nicole Krauss
The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen
Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Beautiful and Damned and The Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Aureole by Carole Maso
Without by Randie Lipkin
Rant by Chuck Palahniuk
Ada, Pnin, and Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov
White Teeth by Zadie Smith
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
The Violent Bear It Away and Wise Blood by Flannery O’Connor
Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
A Room with a View by E.M. Forster
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
The Awakening by Kate Chopin
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
The Gathering by Anne Enright

I’m also reading short story collections by T.C. Boyle, J.D. Salinger, Rick Moody, Jennifer Egan, Annie Proulx, Alice Munro, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Junot Diaz.

In an attempt to get this site to the next level, intellectually speaking, I’ve decided, at the advice of several friends, to start writing book reviews on the site. I would be afraid of alienating readers, but I suspect there aren’t many left anyway.

Not including my extremely short post on Special Topics in Calamity Physics from the fall, this is the first review.

The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides

After finally finishing Pride and Prejudice, my first taste of some author named Jane Austen, I decided to move on to something a little more recent. Ever since reading Virginia Woolf, I’ve become quite the sucker for lyrical prose. Needing my fill of beautiful, rhapsodic language, I turned to Eugenides’ debut novel, The Virgin Suicides. Originally, I had planned to read his other novel, the Pulitizer-winning Middlesex, but after its being named as an Oprah’s Book Club selection, I decided I didn’t want to be reading the same book as thousands of middle-aged women.

The Virgin Suicides features an unusual point of view: an unnamed first-person-plural narrator. I could go into all sorts of English-major cliches about what effect this may or may not be achieving, but I won’t do that. Instead, let me tell you that, despite the inherent tragedy, as well as a certain creepiness that pervades the book, which is to be expected, the book is just gorgeous. It explores the darker side of suburbia with humor and humanity, with intelligence and warmth. In other words, it doesn’t follow the Chumscrubber route. Here’s one of my favorite passages, which comes fairly early in the book:

The sun was falling in the haze of distant factories, and in the adjoining slums the scatter of glass picked up the raw glow of the smoggy sunset. Sounds we usually couldn’t hear reached us now that we were up high, and crouching on the tarred shingles, resting chins in hands, we made out, faintly, an indecipherable backward-playing tape of city life, cries and shouts, the barking of a chained dog, car horns, the voices of girls calling out numbers in an obscure tenacious game—sounds of the impoverished city we never visited, all mixed and muted, without sense, carried on a wind from that place. Then: darkness.

Awesome.

My new mission is to read all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels by the end of the summer.

I am done with this book. Wow, that took some effort.

I think I’ll read Franny and Zooey next.

In the spirit of pointless, self-promoting “Best of 2006” lists, here are the books I enjoyed reading this year.

Cat’s Cradle and Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut
You should read these. They’re both terrific satires—wickedly funny, yet tragically true.

Moneyball by Michael Lewis
If you like baseball stats, read this book. It’s a decent introduction into the realm of sabermetrics. Plus, Joe Morgan hates it.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I think this book was even better the second time around. It’s still my favorite novel.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
Though it was heavy-handed and propagandistic at times, I still loved Rand’s sense of language. There’s a good chance this book will piss you off.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers
Uneven, but still a solid effort. I’d say it’s worth reading.

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
This was most likely the funniest book I read this year.

King Dork by Frank Portman
There’s also a chance that this was the funniest book I read this year. If you hated Catcher in the Rye, which is perhaps impossible, and/or love music, and/or ever wished your prom could end like a certain Stephen King novel, this is the book for you.

Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
One of my new favorite authors. If you read “Modern Fiction,” my criticism of plot-driven narrative is summed up perfectly.

Howards End by E.M. Forster
Despite its reliance on coincidence, it offered a nice glimpse into several aspects of English life, especially in its exploration of class and gender distinctions.

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
A fun read, despite the somewhat disturbing subject matter.

Special Topics in Calamity Physics by Marisha Pessl
Flawed and pretentious, though I still enjoyed it.

Blue Angel by Francine Prose
If you’ve taken a creative writing workshop or have done some literary theory, you’ll get the jokes in this novel.

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
This wasn’t bad. I thought the ending was kind of silly, but Palahniuk had the right idea, instead of the cheesy way the film closes.

The Buddha of Suburbia by Hanif Kureishi
I wish I grew up in the 70s.