Wondercon and my 401(k)

While the literary world is mourning the passing of one superhero right now (rest in peace,Gabriel Garcia Marquez!) and Christians everywhere are celebrating another this weekend, I've been thinking about comic book heroes after taking my boys to Wondercon in Anaheim, Calif. It was the perfect opportunity to make some acquisitions like these

and also to conduct a little research on what's-selling-for-what in the superhero market these days. I still have a bunch of old comics from my younger days, and they should be worth something, right? I just didn't realize how much.

Among the new acquisitions, I absolutely had to have a copy of "The Wedding of Scott Summers and Jean Grey" from X-Men, even though it's disappointing. Chris Claremont, Dave Cockrum, and John Byrne ripped little kids' hearts apart with "The Dark Phoenix Saga" back in the 1980s, and this issue is an attempt to heal up what's unhealable. I'm glad to have it, but the entire thing is far too sentimental to measure up to what Claremont & Company created. They chose the best, and only way to conclude that story. Nuff said.

On the other hand, nothing that the immortal Jack Kirby ever created can disappoint. While the price tag on his "New Gods" series scared me off (for the time being, at least), I picked up this nifty issue of "The Demon" instead. Switching companies, from Marvel to DC, did nothing to dilute or change his signature style and voice.  Open these pages and you instantly know where you are and whose world you've entered. Kirby was a true comics mythologist, and in this issue he gives us another terrific origins story for the aptly-named demonologist Jason Blood. Beware, faint-hearted readers!

Finally, I spotted the name of "Claremont" on the cover of a series about the heroes known as "The Sovereign Seven":

and when I realized that the name belonged to the same fellow who created the Dark Phoenix tales, and that he wrote this series for DC, not Marvel, I had just one reaction: I'm in!!!

As far as my 401(k) is concerned, my friends, Yours Truly owns several special old editions of certain comics, but I never knew their value. I never bothered to hunt in any comics price guides or surf e-Bay to see what they were worth.

One of these is an early issue of Daredevil, his battle against the Purple Man in #4, before the blind crusader switched to his devil-red costume:

... as well as this early appearance of storyteller Frank Miller ("300," "Sin City," "The Dark Knight Returns") in Daredevil:

Even then, early in his career, Miller had a fully mature, sophisticated touch. This issue is creepy! There's also a later issue of DD's that features Miller's introduction of the assassin Elektra:

In my mind, I can still see that comic book rack in the drugstore -- I can still hear it squeaking as my mother yelled at me and I frantically searched for something to buy. Elektra's silhouette and the look on Daredevil's face closed the deal for me.

And then there's the Dark Phoenix climactic issue (mentioned above) which is nothing short of Greek Tragedy, Marvel-style:

Well, my good friends, I found that these single issues range from $100 to several hundred dollars. I certainly can't quit my job anytime soon, but it was a nice discovery -- sort of like finding some old savings bonds in the attic that once belonged to Granny.

It's also a nice vindication of a childhood obsession, too. See? All that lawn-mowing money didn't go to waste afterall! What kind of stock portfolio gets this kind of return on investment?!

Not to mention that my boys and I have several more boxes of old comics to examine. Who knows what else we'll find?!!

Second only to Paris ... 700 years ago, that is

Well, we wouldn't have Shakespeare's sonnets if plague hadn't closed all the London theaters; we wouldn't have Henry James' novels (a mixed blessing) if he'd struck gold as a playwright; and we definitely wouldn't have Dante's "Comedy" if the poet hadn't been driven out of Florence.

In other words, misfortune's often been the handmaiden to great art.

That last example is taken from Prue Shaw, whose recent book "Reading Dante: From Here to Eternity" (Liveright/W.W. Norton) achieves what seemed impossible -- to provide a fresh assessment of the poet and his poem for modern readers.

Why impossible?

It's not hard to understand, my friends. Go to the "D" shelf in your local university library. Or do a quick Google search. You'll find that Dante's poem is encased -- entombed (like Farinata in circle 6 of Hell) -- within layers of critical commentary (both scholarly and mainstream) . It seems that everything that could be said about the poem has been said about it.

And besides that, most of us cling to some snobby presumption about Dante that sounds like this:

"Devils and circles, a big terraced mountain and a damsel, and heaven at the end of it ... what else is there to know?"

What would Dante think of such a response? There's a Dore engraving that, I think, says it all:

He definitely didn't suffer fools. A pretty intimidating image.

And for those intimidated by the poem itself, the great mediator lately has been thriller-king Dan Brown, whose latest psychopath in the Robert Langdon series is a lover of "Inferno" (ok, so what does that say about the rest of his fans?).

Shaw's the one, though, who really deserves the honor of being mediatrix, not Brown -- her book makes a compelling, poignant  case for why we should really care about this epic  composed some 700 years ago.

Why? Because it is easy to forget the ingenious, intricate structuring of the tripartite poem, the scathing political commentary, and the risks that Dante took -- which is why Shaw spends the first half of  her book on vivid descriptions of 13th century Florence's socio-political landscape. Today, she's a picturesque tour stop; in Dante's day, Florence was far more, "a huge metropolis in medieval terms. Only Venice and Milan equalled Florence in size; only Paris was larger."

When it comes to Dante, historical context is easily lost. But Shaw deftly sets his struggles against a tumultuous world and a corrupt pope (Boniface VIII) in terms that we can all easily understand:

Dante is as "engaged" a political writer as there has ever been, and as brave a one. A modern parallel would be Russian writers exiled under Stalin for speaking out: Osip Mandelstam comes to mind.

Dante as political dissident -- this is the sort of revelation that cracks away at all of the scholarship that's hardened over the poem through time.

There are plenty of other examples, like the "literary shoptalk" between Virgil and Statius which causes Dante to say of himself, "I listened to their talk, which gave me insight into writing poetry."

Or this bit about why, from a practical standpoint, Dante may have chosen to write in terza rima:

Medieval scribes often took liberties with the texts they copied. They cut bits they didn't like, added lines of their own, rather as a musician might treat a score as a basis for skilled improvisation. There is a whole scholarly industry devoted to scribal rewordings of the Roman de la Rose. Given the controversial nature of some of Dante's material, scribes might well have been tempted to censor the text by cutting awkward passages. But this is virtually impossible with the terza rims. Any cut will leave a text which is obviously botched. Any attempt to add material is likewise doomed to failure.

What Shaw accomplishes with passages like these is to inject blood back into the poet: He was human. He struggled as a writer, and he anticipated the meddling of editors by making his poem a bit harder to edit.

(In this she is very much like "The Swerve's" Stephen Greenblatt, who is also published by W.W. Norton and who yours truly heard speak not long ago.)

My friends, I could easily go on, but then I'd have a 5,000-word blog post, which sort of defeats the purpose of a blog. If you've perused Call of the Siren before, I'm sure you know how much I adore Dante. But instead, I'll humbly point the way ahead to paradise, like Virgil did for the poet, and ask you to explore the riches of Shaw's book for yourself. Ciao, amici.

DANTE-RELATED AT CALL OF THE SIREN:

• A talk with Dante translator Andrew Frisardi
• Review of Dan Brown's "Inferno"
• Chwast hits a Homer
• Making Dante Go Bang

 DANTE-RELATED  FROM ELSEWHERE

• Rod Dreher: "How Dante Saved My Life"
• In the Middle -Nel Mezzo:  "Canto 8, Paradiso -- Heaven is Boring"
• Samedi Quelquechose: "The Divine Comedy (A Sartre-irical Book Review)"

DANTE SCHOLAR PRUE SHAW:

• An author entry at her publisher, W.W. Norton
•  At Writing Lives: Shaw and her spouse, Clive James

Strange & Norrell: Where did that novel go?

A republished post by fantasy novelist Jo Walton asks a poignant question, Whatever happened to Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell?

"It did about as well as any book can do," Walton writes, "….but five years later, it doesn't seem to have had any impact."

Walton's piece first appeared in 2010 (hence the five years remark -- Clarke's wondrous strange novel first appeared in 2004). I just read the piece, which was republished on the Tor website to promote her latest book, a collection of writings and ruminations,  What Makes this Book so Great: Re Reading the Classics of Science fiction and fantasy. (A great idea for a book that any blogger could produce!)

Walton's is the kind of piece that every writer wishes to see -- it not only tells you that your book matters, but that it's worth reading a second or a third time (and that's quite a thing to say when it comes to Clarke's novel, which is Dickensian in length as well as style).

Walton's piece is thoughtful, and she entertains  several reasons why more novels haven't been clearly inspired by the Norrell/Strange epic (though, since 2010, I think her judgment is dated -- the landscape hasn't been nearly as empty as she claimed back then).

Among them:

• Inspiration just takes a long time to have an effect on people, and Clarke's book will require time to inspire: "influence does take time to permeate through"
• Maybe this novel is just too wonderful and unique to influence other fantasy works or to engage in a dialogue with other works of fantasy; in other words, it is sealed off on its own fictive island

I don't entirely disagree with Walton, but my immediate reaction was, hey, more of the burden's on the industry's shoulders, not Clarke's.

As I recall, Clarke's novel appeared in between two books in the Harry Potter series — it was an incredible stroke of timing for her. Magic-hungry readers snapped it up as they impatiently waited for the next Potter installment. The ten years that she spent writing her novel were amply repaid.

But afterwards, I think Walton is right: For a long time, the publishing field remained pretty clear of anything resembling Clarke's (or Rowling's) work. Some publishers did try to cash in with deliberate, pathetic clones. (Anybody out there read a silly series of YA novels about the adventures of Charlie Bone?)  But aside from these, it was mostly Harry who held the field.

That had less to do with the powers of Clarke's inspiration and more with the power of the publishers, the gatekeepers of what we see in bookstores and online.

I suspect — based on my own work, which draws some light from blessed St. Susanna, and from my other experiences in the industry — that plenty of admirers are out there, writing works that are in perfect dialogue with hers. But the buyers for various publishers are thinking of other things. They're chasing after tastes and trends -- one's hope remains, as always, to find that editor who believes in nurturing stories for a simple reason: They should be read and shared.

Walton, I think, forgot about that back in 2010.

As of today, in 2014, Clarke's book still pops up in discussions on the blogosphere. She seems less a solitary figure than a writer in company with the names Rothfuss, Gaiman, Grossman, Link, etc.

And there's a miniseries in the works, which should be terrific -- in other words, Clarke's novel is still alive and well in people's minds.

***

P.S. I do like Walton's idea of re-reading classic works and explaining why they're great. I've been thinking of ways to feed the Siren. That's a terrific one.

Also Worth Your Time, Worth Reading:

• "Reclaiming the Freedom to Sing" (The Task at Hand, hosted by shore acres)
• Book hoarding ... and more (at Jilanne Hoffmann)
• Giving Patricia Cornwell's latest a chance (at Ofglassandbooks)
• On Boundaries (at Entropy, hosted by A.R. Williams)

You didn't get rid of that book, did you?

Yes, I nearly did.

Elizabeth Wayland Barber's The Dancing Goddesses: Folklore, Archaeology, and the Origins of European Dance (W.W. Norton) almost escaped my home. It wasn't any fault on the book's part--on mine.

Have you done this before? I hadn't picked it up since it was published early last year, and as I went about some early spring cleaning last week, I decided to give it to the library. Since I couldn't give it the attention it deserved, I thought, maybe a library could. 

What a mistake that would have been.

A drawing peeked out from its pages — an ancient tureen inscribed with figures from Ukraine — as I was moving it to my giveaway bag, and I stopped. Before I knew it, I was deep in its pages, finding some new inspiration for my novel at just the right time.

Can't imagine what I might've lost if I hadn't noticed that image.

I'm sure that has happened to many of you, my friends.

Wayland Barber's book is a revelation. It is a survey of folk mythologies (mostly

Slavic) that's very idiosyncratic — in the way that James Frazer's Golden Bough is idiosyncratic, or Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy. There's an exuberance and a tone here that's undeniably personal, even at its most authoritative moments, such as this one where she refers to the effect of certain spirits or "willies" (from vily; as in "that horror movie gives me a case of the willies"):

With a final push to the crops at Midsummer, the willies have now finished their work: the grain and hay have grown and ripened and await harvesting. All that remains is to reap what the Dancing Goddesses have created. Cohorts of young people go out all day to mow the hay, all the while chanting slow, rhythmic, antiphonal songs to time the long swings of the sharp scythes, until the movement becomes almost a dance and the sound dulls the senses of time and fatigue....

Isn't that lovely?

In considering the connections between dance traditions and fertility beliefs and customs, this professor emerita from Occidental College ranges across fields in search of flowers with supernatural meanings. She looks down into the surfaces of rivers and streams to see what water sprites might be gazing back. Sometimes she sees something.

It's a marvelous book with a style that is easy and accessible, but hardly easy to imitate. And I might've lost it, and lost the inspiration. A new declaration: no more spring cleanings!

W.W. Norton has produced yet another exemplary volume that sheds light on our common, mythic heritage. Coming soon to this blog:  more offerings from Norton that are worth your while. They're definitely worth mine, too.

P.S. Wayland Barber's book also made me unexpectedly heartsick over Ukraine. The old folk tales and practices that she records reminded this reader of the region's vibrant, deep customs — enduring, one hopes, in spite of all the current troubles.

A shield for your thoughts ... and Daniel Mendelsohn

Though I'm not in the newspaper trade anymore, where interesting people and topics flow constantly through the door,  I'm at the next best thing, a powerhouse liberal arts college. The  flow continues as brilliant minds visit — not in the hopes of getting good attention on the front page -- but simply in order to stretch their legs and show just why they deserve to be called brilliant.

I sat down today with Daniel Mendelsohn, one of a handful of writers who keep a shine on that venerable old plaque embossed with the word "critic." He's at Claremont McKenna College as a visiting fellow, and I was looking forward to meeting him. I never had while I was at the Times,  though I'd often hoped back then that we could bank up enough of our little book review budget to snag a freelance piece from him (him and also Neil Gaiman … with Gaiman, I tried and tried to get him. Lord how I tried). I mentioned that to him and he smiled.

He lamented the deflation of book coverage in newspapers, and he sounded an optimistic note about Pamela Paul and the New York Times. (While others decline, the Gray Lady, like the Dude, abides.)

In keeping with our surroundings, the conversation focused on the notion of the humanities in our tweet-afflicted, Facebook-smitten, tumblr-besodden era. (I'm sure that litany rings corny, but hey this is my blog. I'll do what I want.)

When we were done, and I went happily on my way, I realized that I truly was happy after we'd finished.

That's been a hard thing to achieve in the past several months, especially now as my family licks its wounds after a painful loss. (See the previous post.) That doesn't mean I've dressed in sackcloth and sat in ashes since December, that I haven't  laughed with my friends or broken into a weird tribal dance while my younger boy is practicing on his drums. I have, even as I feel the pangs of my mother's absence.

But as I left that interview, I was thinking of myth and Mendelsohn. He made a point that myths continue to appeal to us because we're hard-wired to appreciate them -- and because myth addresses those human needs that aren't sated by a fat paycheck or a career that causes a roomful of people to genuflect as you enter. Those human needs have to do with the milestones -- births, deaths, love, weddings, anniversaries, heartbreaks, and all forms of loss.

When we're mindful of them, myths prepare us in a special way for these things. They equip us in a way that Mendelsohn explains with a lovely lovely riff from an essay on the Iliad. He writes about the epic and ordinary scenes Hephaestus inscribes on Achilles' shield. That mixture of the high and low, the common and uncommon, leads to this reflection:

[T]he shield presents images of a city at peace and a city at war, of weddings and a lawsuit, of people dancing and people arming for ambush….. All of which is to say that when Achilles returns to battle—returns to deal out death—he is armed with a vision of life, at once expansive and movingly intimate, enormously rich but necessarily confined within a boundary that shapes it and gives it coherence.

Isn't that what the best stories -- myths -- do for us? Isn't that why, at the deepest and most vital level, reading and writing are as crucial to our daily life as food? (At least they should be.)

I returned to my office with this thought in mind -- feeling a little more secure, comfortable, shielded.

Related:

• Home page for Daniel Mendelsohn: http://www.danielmendelsohn.com