Is the J silent in "Betjeman"?

The Overlook Press is delivering a mythical one-two punch with the publication of a biography of epic novelist John Cowper Powys next month followed by an unabridged version of "Porius," his Arthurian epic, in September. So, I know what I’ll be soon reading. But still I need to ask a very important question:

How the heck do you pronounce his name?

Is it as obvious as it seems?

"Cowper," it turns out, is pronounced as "Cooper"--the name links him to his distant kin William Cowper, English poet of depression (see his famous poem, "The Castaway"). "Powys" is trickier: It’s an ancestral name that should be pronounced as "Pow-iss"--at least that’s the consensus on the web.

One person online offers the snotty reply to a request for help on pronouncing the name: "Just the way it’s written." Thanks for that.

All of this leads me to think of the many author names that can break your heart. I’m not talking about obvious landmines--Uzodinma Iweala, for instance--but seemingly easy ones that aren’t easy after all.

Patrick McGrath. Simple, right? His last name, he tells interviewers, should be pronounced "McGraw" even though he’ll answer to the more obvious version. Or that fine biographer of things British, Jenny Uglow, who just published a book on an 18th-century engraver--is her name "ugg-glow" or "yew-glow"?

Here are a few to consider:

Gioconda Belli: Does the Nicaraguan poet say "belly" or is it "bell-EYE"?

John Betjeman: Is the "j" silent in this poet’s name? What the devil is it doing there?

T. Coraghessan Boyle: Born Thomas John Boyle, his middle name wasn’t fancy enough, so he adopted another.

Michael Chabon: CHAY-bun or Shah-BONE or something else?

J.M. Coetzee: No idea

Edwidge Danticat: It’s this Haitian-born American author’s first name that worries me

Thomas Kinsella: The proper Irish pronunciation, I’m told, is "Kin-SAH-la"

Rick Riordan: This children’s author says it is "RYE-or-dan"

Nick Owchar

H.G. Wells: An Updike connection

Most readers probably didn’t come to H.G. Wells’ two books of history, "The Outline of History" and "A Short History of the World," via his science fiction but through John Updike. You may remember that Wells’ "Outline" is integral to Updike’s early story "Pigeon Feathers."

T he reissuing of the works of H.G. Wells by Penguin Classics continues this month--not with "Outline" but with the book he published two years later, "A Short History" (Penguin: 372 pp., $15 paper). Written in the wake of World War I, both books were a reaction to the war, which Wells had hoped would signal the beginning of a brighter, new global order. Bitterly disappointed by the outcome, he turned to world history, which, with exasperation, he called nothing but a "race between education and catastrophe."

"An Outline" seethes with spleen: No wonder it stuns and traumatizes Updike’s young main character, David, in particular when he reads about Jesus. Updike characterizes Wells’ handling of Christ in this way:

"Then, before he could halt his eyes, David slipped into Wells’s account of Jesus. He had been an obscure political agitator, a kind of hobo, in a minor colony of the Roman Empire. By an accident impossible to reconstruct, he (the small h horrified David) survived his own crucifixion and presumably died a few weeks later. A religion was founded on the freakish incident."

This trivialization sends David into a youthful existential crisis that subsides only when, in studying the delicate design of a pigeon’s wings, his belief in a Creator of all things is restored (the epiphany comes, though, after first blasting several pigeons in the family’s barn before they ruin some furniture stored there).

If young David had been reading Wells’ "Short History" instead, the crisis might have been averted (and we’d lose a beautiful story, an early demonstration of Updike’s brilliance!). For "Short History" is much calmer, without the same tone found in the earlier book (notably when it comes to Jesus). Wells ends on a grudgingly hopeful note: "What man has done, the little triumphs of his present state, and all this history we have told, form but the prelude to the things that man has yet to do."

Nick Owchar

Vacation reading

I’m the kind of person who can’t go away for the weekend without bringing half a dozen books. So when I take a vacation, I stockpile books for weeks beforehand: books I’ve read, books I’ve meant to read or books I never knew I wanted to read until they came across my desk.

Vacation is still a month away for me, but here are a few titles I’ve already set aside:

“The Violent Bear It Away” by Flannery O’Connor (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: 244 pp., $14 paper). O’Connor’s second novel, originally published in 1960, is the story of two cousins adrift in a world of faith and false hope. I read it in my early 20s, as part of an extended O’Connor binge, and it changed the way I thought about belief and illusion, the stories we tell ourselves in order to live. I’m a bit wary, I must admit, about returning to the novel; this past winter, I re-visited O’Connor’s 1952 debut novel, “Wise Blood,” and liked it less than I remembered, finding it contrived in places and (although it pains me to admit it) very, very young. This is one of the risks of re-reading — that the books that moved us once might not do so any longer, that we may discover just how distant we have grown from our younger selves.

“The Way Some People Die” by Ross Macdonald (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard: 246 pp., $12.95 paper). Macdonald represents a hole in my reading — a Southern California noirist I’ve somehow overlooked. This early novel (it first appeared in 1951) looks like a good place to make his acquaintance; it’s a missing-persons caper that takes Macdonald’s hard-boiled detective Lew Archer from Santa Monica to San Francisco on the trail of a young woman who doesn’t want to be found. If I like it, I’m going to try a second early Macdonald, 1952’s “The Ivory Grin” (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard: 240 pp., $12.95 paper), the story of a theft that leads not just to murder but also to corruption. This is, of course, nothing if not the ideal trajectory of noir.

“John O’Hara’s Hollywood” by John O’Hara, edited and with an introduction by Matthew J. Bruccoli (Carroll & Graf: 384 pp., $17.95 paper). My favorite O’Hara novel is “Hope of Heaven,” the 1938 story of a relationship between a screenwriter and a local girl. It’s not a Hollywood novel per se, but it does get the ins and outs of life in Southern California as deftly as any piece of fiction that I know. That’s why I’m looking forward to this collection of O’Hara’s Hollywood stories, which span 40-plus years, beginning with 1932’s “Mr. Sidney Gainsborough: Quality Pictures” and running through “Malibu fFrom the Sky.” O’Hara is one of the few novelists of his generation who really understood Hollywood, seeing it as not just a place to cash in but as a template for a larger set of stories — stories that have everything to do with the nature of American life.

David L. Ulin

Living at the movies

There are few books I look forward to receiving as much as “Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide.” Each year when it arrives, I think about the influence of a single volume, the way one person’s name can become a household word.

The 2008 edition (Signet: 1,630 pp., $9.99 paper) will soon hit bookstores, and, as ever, it adds several hundred listings to the 17,000-plus entries already in the mix. But what I find most compelling — other than the sheer heft of all those motion pictures — is not so much the comprehensive nature of the effort as the idea that it is like an almanac, a record of the storms and weather systems of the cinema, and, even more, of the viewing habits of Maltin and his team.

In this year’s introduction, Maltin thanks his “loyal readers,” not only for embracing a reference book but also for believing that such a work “has value in the computer age.” He’s got a point, I suppose, but then again, what is the “Maltin Guide” if not a reference book for the computer age? Here, we have a work that’s personal, idiosyncratic, an epic catalog of one person’s fascination and expertise. In other words, it’s like an elaborate movie database — or better yet, a 1,600-plus-page blog.

David L. Ulin

Spoiling the 'Harry' fun? (Don't worry, we haven't)

Salon.com's Machinist blog reported Tuesday that the entire text of the final installment in the Harry Potter series, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" — in the form of digital photographs of each page — had been leaked online.

Columnist Farhad Manjoo wrote that he had downloaded the complete novel, and even quoted snippets from the book to prove his claim. By late afternoon, the news had been picked up by such newspapers as Toronto’s Globe and Mail.

Most interesting, I find, are the responses to the item, many of which beg Salon not to give anything away. "[P]lease don’t tell me what happens," pleaded poster "GeorgeSmiley."

In response to angry Potter fans, Manjoo posted: "I appreciate you guys not wanting to read any of it. But as you'll notice, I didn't post any of it, nor did I give away anything that happens. I didn't even link to the site where you can get it. . . .  if you don’t want the book spoiled, you’re in luck, because all you have to do is nothing."

What it all comes down to are technophiles' bemoaning how technology might — or might not — be used to proffer stolen goods. Call me crazy, but I'll bet only a handful of people who want to read the book are going to do so on the Web. Sure, there are people who just want to find out what happens — and even those who want to spoil the surprise for everybody else. For the rest of us, though, what we really want is to read the book the way it was meant to be read.

On paper.

— Orli Low

Borders to move children’s book to adult sections …

"Tintin in the Congo," the children’s comic book to be published for the first time in the United States this fall, will be shelved in the adult section of Borders bookstores because of content that could be viewed as racist, Publishers Weekly reported Tuesday.

Borders' British stores earlier this month yanked the book from its children's sections and placed it with graphic novels after the Commission on Racial Equality denounced it for depicting black Africans as "savage natives" who "look like monkeys and talk like imbeciles," according to the Telegraph.

"Tintin in the Congo," first published in 1931, is was the second in a series by Belgian artist Hergé to chronicle the international adventures of a quick-witted young reporter and his fluffy white dog. The book was redrawn by the artist in 1946 to remove references to the Congo’s being a Belgian colony, but was excluded from reprinting in Britain until recently because it still contained such images as a black woman bowing to Tintin and saying: "White man very great. . . .  White mister is big juju man!" The book will be included in a boxed set of 24 volumes to be reissued by Little, Brown in November as part of a centenary celebration of the birth of Hergé, the pen name of Belgian cartoonist Georges Rémi.

Borders' U.S. spokeswoman Ann Binkley told PW's Karen Holt that the retailer is "committed to acting responsibly ¼ and with sensitivity to all of the communities we serve" by placing "Tintin in the Congo" in the adult graphic novel sections. "We believe adults have the capacity to evaluate this work within historical context and make their own decision whether to read it or not. Other 'Tintin' titles will remain in the children's section."

Meanwhile, U.S. publisher Little, Brown says on its website that the book "reflects the colonial attitudes" of the period and that the reissued volume will seek to "contextualize" the stereotypes held about black African people at the time.

— Kristina Lindgren

On the passing of a maestro of crushing love scenes

Last week romance publishing said goodbye to Kathleen Woodiwiss, who died at 68. When I was a kid, I didn’t have any idea how revolutionary "The Flame and the Flower" was, but I knew that my mom and all her friends were reading it. After one of my mom’s coffee klatches--an informal book club, circa 1978--I found her paperback copy on the kitchen table next to an ashtray, several scattered cups and saucers and a half-eaten strudel.

With that book, Woodiwiss showed romance writers how to write tingly love scenes. After hearing of her death, I found my mother’s copy, all yellowed and taped up, on a shelf by the fireplace. I cracked it open to search for one of those panting scenes that critics say made Woodiwiss a pioneer in the romance novel field. It wasn’t difficult to find one:

"She moved her arm out of the way, and Brandon paled as she moved guilelessly between his knees. There was an ugly scratch marring the white skin of her underarm, and a long vicious-looking pin protruded from the material at the side of her breast, but the head of the pin was inside her gown and it couldn’t be freed from without. Most reluctantly he reached up and slid two fingers inside her bodice against the soft warm flesh of her breast as she stood obediently motionless and watched him with trusting eyes. His gaze caught hers for a second, and amazingly his face flushed red.

" ‘What the hell!’ he thought angrily. ‘She has me blushing like an unsullied virgin!’ "

Woodiwiss made her blushing readers feel the same way.

When I left my mom’s house with the book in hand for this column, she said something that I’ve never heard her say before when I’ve taken a book: "Hey, when you’re done with it, I want it back."

Nick Owchar

Random links: For your surfing pleasure

Literary magazines, summer issues: On newsstands are new issues of some fine literary magazines you may--or may not--have heard about. The Stinging Fly is the leading literary magazine and publisher for young Irish writers. Its editor, Declan Mead, is something of the kingpin of the young writers’ scene in Dublin. The new issue includes an interview with M.J. Hyland as well as new stories by A.L. Kennedy and poems by Graham Allen, Mary Rose Callan, Noel Conneely and others.

The centerpiece of Paris Review’s summer issue is an interview with Norman Mailer; the issue also includes fresh fiction by André Aciman and poetry by some newcomer named Charles Baudelaire.
The New England Review, out of Middlebury College, includes an excerpt from Gino Segrè’s new book "Faust in Copenhagen," published by Viking, as well as Francis-Noel Thomas’ thoughts on mortality, prompted by his reading of Julien Green’s diary.

The delightful Poetry, founded long ago by Harriet Monroe, in 1912, continues to present a mix of new and familiar voices. But there’s also the unexpected: sports journalist Michael Lewis’ essay "Poetry in Motion: A Diary of the Collapse of the 2006 New York Giants" as well as David Orr’s delightful classical meditation on summer beach reading which leads us to an image of Menelaus’ battle with Proteus in the "Odyssey."

Reviews that make you say "ouch": Patrick Anderson, this week in the Washington Post, didn’t find much to praise in the crime novel "Self’s Deception" by Bernhard Schlink, translated from the German by Peter Constantine. Among his comments were: "This is one of the most discursive novels I’ve ever read. Let us note that Schlink has been both a judge and a law professor: This is a writer accustomed to captive audiences."

Kerouac contentiousness: As the 50th anniversary of the publication of "On the Road" nears (on Sept. 5), Kerouac biographer Gerald Nicosia is charging the estate of Jack Kerouac and the publisher Viking with attempting to erase his contributions to our understanding of this singular American writer.

Bacon as a writer’s motivation: Almost missed this one, a posting earlier this week on Bookslut about Peter Ho Davies and a method he once used to get himself motivated to write. He’s since given this up because, in the long run, eating too much bacon isn’t good for you.

Nick Owchar

What is counter-insurgency good for?

Just in time for the renewal of the war debate in Congress, the University of Chicago Press has released "The U.S. Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual" (420 pp. $15 paper), a thick guide to strategy--both military and otherwise--with forewords by Gen. David H. Petraeus and Lt. Gen. James F. Amos. It’s a nifty volume, not only because it gives you a sense of what our most highly regarded military theorists are thinking, but because sometimes what they’re thinking is the last thing you’d expect. Especially interesting is a section called "Paradoxes of Counterinsurgency Operations," in which the "Field Manual" tells us: "Sometimes doing nothing is the best reaction" and "Sometimes, the more force is used, the less effective it is."

In conjunction with the "Field Manual," University of Chicago has also put out "Instructions for American Servicemen in Iraq During World War II" (44 pp., $10)--a historical oddity that sheds a certain unintended light upon our current woes. Among its suggestions? "Manners are important"; "Avoid offering opinions on internal politics"; and "No preaching." Most of all, "use common sense on all occasions. And remember that every American soldier is an unofficial ambassador of good will."

David L. Ulin

The other R-word this month: Rushdie

At the expense of J.K. Rowling, a little bit of virtual space should be given to a novelist whose difficult situation has been forgotten in all the Harry Potter hype: Salman Rushdie. Our media columnist and book critic Tim Rutten wrote about the public’s stunning indifference to renewed Muslim threats against Rushdie’s life after the British crown announced his knighthood last month.

Now, Sign and Sight is posting among today’s items that a German writer is seeking permission to hold a reading of Rushdie’s 1988 novel, "The Satanic Verses" -- which led to the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s pronouncement of a fatwa calling for his death -- in a Cologne mosque after its construction is completed. Journalist and author Günter Wallraff ("The Undesirable Journalist," "Lowest of the Low") casts this reading as a crucial part of an open dialogue between East and West that would have "an extremely liberating effect. Just imagine the scene in the mosque: The reading takes place, some find what they hear to be not bad at all, and some even laugh. That would open a lot of doors."

Nick Owchar