Judging a Book By Its Lover Read online

  Afterward, a gaggle of girls from the class approached me. They held stapled-together sheets of paper in their hands and looked nervous. One spoke up: “Leto-san, we were wondering if you would let us act our script.” In unison they held up their papers.

  “You already have a script for the play?” I asked, as if it possibly could be for something else, like the thirteen-year-olds wrote commercials and screenplays on the side. They nodded excitedly and one girl handed me her copy.

  She explained as I read. “It’s a fashion show…and there’s a beautiful girl. Then Jack Sparrow comes and tries to steal her! So her boyfriend fights him! And the boyfriend wins!”

  “Jack Sparrow?”

  “Pirates of the Caribbean!” all seven girls screamed excitedly at once. That’s how I ended up producing a fan-fiction play in Japan.

  On the day the new Harry Potter book came out, two of the American guys I worked with wanted to get the book as well. The more geographically minded teacher led the way. He had a map with our route from Ohanajaya to Roppongi (the area containing the nearest store selling the English-language version of the book, we were told) planned out. We had to transfer three times, taking four trains in total to our destination. The beginning of the trip was without complications, save for the dirty looks we got from other teachers when we announced we were skipping out on work early that day to buy a children’s book. Some might argue that the Harry Potter series is not for children, but it is. Death and destruction aided by simple language and a lack of sex is child’s play.

  After the second transfer, we made it through the turnstile just in time to hear the train arrive. We ran for it, the two boys’ long legs outpacing mine. I was two steps behind when they reached the closing doors. Japanese trains aren’t lazy like the subways of New York; when they close, they close. No exceptions. The boys made it through the doors and I stood watching them through the glass window.

  I panicked, screeching, “What do I do?!” They tried to yell back but we couldn’t hear each other through the glass. They resorted to anxiously gesturing at me, making an “O” on one hand and holding four fingers up on the other. I couldn’t make out what they were doing. “Oh-four?! Oh-four?!” The train sped away and I burst into tears. I was alone in a place where I couldn’t speak the language. I didn’t even know the name of the station where I was standing, I had forgotten the name of the station we were going to, and I didn’t know the name of the station we had departed from. I wondered if I should just stand there, forever. Become a bum, lost in the outskirts of Tokyo, foraging for food or English speakers.

  Most of all, I worried the boys were going to get the last two available Harry Potter books and by the time I made it, if I ever made it at all, the store would be sold out. Then I definitely wouldn’t finish it before my brother. After some moments, which felt like hours, a man tapped my shoulder and started speaking Japanese to me. I shook my head over and over as he spoke louder and louder, repeating a phrase. In hindsight, he was doing the same thing Americans do while speaking to foreigners who don’t know the language: acting as if language barriers can be overcome if you speak loud enough. Finally, he started miming out the same actions as my friends, an “O” with one hand, four fingers up on the other. I said back, “Oh-four? Oh-four?” The man kept shaking his head and had just about lost his patience when a woman standing nearby ran to the map and started gesturing for me to come look. Forty was the number of the stop she was pointing to. “I go there?” I said as loud as the man had been talking to me, pointing to myself, then at the map. She and the man nodded. All three of us got on the next train when it arrived and the two practically shoved me out the door when it arrived at stop 40, where my friends were waiting for me, doubled over from laughing at my difficulties.

  We finally arrived in Roppongi and I got the book, reading the entire thing that night, depressed because Neville didn’t get to be the hero but elated that I finished it before my brother.

  The Rules of Book Club

  THE BOOK CLUB IS one of the most joyful and most annoying things in a reader’s life. With every meeting, there is the one awkward moment when everyone becomes aware of who didn’t read the book or who didn’t understand the protagonist’s state. Don’t be that person.

  Book clubs tend to have many required roles; there’s usually a self-appointed leader who holds the group together, gives the deciding vote for the next book the group will read, and decides where to meet. Next, there’s the guy who talks too much about the wrong ideas. He’s probably a philosophy major from some elite college—too bad the tuition didn’t buy the ability to realize when you’re monopolizing a conversation and need to shut it. Don’t forget the girl who sits and stares like a mute. Maybe she’s bored on Monday nights and just shows up for the hell of it. Maybe she’s too shy to give her opinion. Either way she’s not going to say a word. Last and worst, however, is the nodder. The nodder is the one who starts, yes, to nod frantically while you’re halfway through explaining a point. When especially excited, the nodder also likes to murmur positive reinforcement like, “Yes, exactly,” as if you needed a chorus to affirm your explanation of why you think Owen Meany knew from the beginning that his life had a greater purpose.

  Here’s an explanation of what usually goes down at book club, presented in the style of the rules of fight club from the book Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk.

  Rules of Book Club

  The first rule of book club is you have to talk about book club. Outside of book club, any mention of a book you read in book club must be accompanied by, “Oh, I read that in book club.” The café where you meet for book club must be similarly noted in conversation: “Oh, I go there for book club.” The people in your book club are not friends; you’ll refer to them in phrases like, “Oh, we’re in book club together.” Further examples: “I can’t go to brunch on Sunday, I have book club.” “Yes! I’m so excited, we chose the book I wanted for book club.” “I don’t know if I have time to join your book club, I’m already in three.” “I’m going to go see that movie with my book club because we read the book in book club.”

  The second rule of book club is you have to talk about book club. “Ever since we read C for book club, I can’t stop reading Tom McCarthy! I’m suggesting we read his book Men in Space for next book club. I think our book club needs to focus on him again; we really accessed some good points about him and ourselves, as a group.” “I brought up our relationship problems in book club and they said if I stayed with you it’d be like Patty staying with Walter in Freedom, which is a book I read for book club, so I think we should break up.” “While in book club today I thought about how my life seems so much like Sloane Crosley’s in I Was Told There’d Be Cake, which is the book we read for book club, so I’m quitting my job.”

  If someone says stop, goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. “I can’t continue fighting with you over whether or not Jennifer Egan had a solid finish to A Visit from the Goon Squad. It’s clear you took her ‘autistic chapter’ as definite proof of her transcendent creativity when I thought it wasn’t an adequate setup for the ending of the book, and I think a robustly resolved plot better serves the reader than do quirky structural devices. It went on for too long and the closing chapter did nothing to resolve what went on with Bennie and Sasha. We can sit here all day and say that was the purpose of her book, that there are no clear finishes to anyone’s story in life, but I refuse to accept that, given how she so clearly demarcates Lulu’s life. Everyone else was left open-ended except for Lulu, and I don’t understand that but I have to give up since you think strewn-together pie charts make for resonant storytelling.”

  Two guys to a fight. Have you ever heard three or more people fight over a story line in a book club? It’s a mess. The fight needs to be kept to two, or else other people come in out of left field with completely irrelevant statements in order to hear their own voices. Keep it to the two debating and the others can sit and make notations until they clear it up.r />
  One Brontë sister for the life of the book club. And no Austen. You should’ve quenched your thirst for the sentimental novel in high school.

  You must have annotations and reading glasses. How are we going to know you read without notes in the margins? How are we even going to know you can read without reading glasses? Reading glasses are the mark of years of abusing your eyes, and we want proof you’ve been through the wringer before you sit at our table.

  Fights about Natasha in War and Peace will go on as long as they need to. Possible sticking points: Do you think she was truly good? Natasha is selfish in her attempts to elope with Anatol, but is that attributable to her naïveté? Is Anatol to blame for exploiting her? Is her susceptibility to Anatol’s exploitation a character fault or a fatalistic component of youth? Watch sparks fly.

  If this is your first night at book club, you have to prove that you read. Do so by making mention of small details in the reading, like how on page X the protagonist notes something interesting and uncharacteristic of her typical observations.

  Petition to Change the Term from “Bookworm” to “Bookcat”

  THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING us readers today concerns our mascot, the bookworm. In illustrations it is usually rendered as a chubby brown or green worm with a dopey smile and glasses, sometimes wearing a tie, and either holding a book or eating a hole through it. Readers do not take offense at the idea that we chew through books. We do, however, take affront at the notion of being characterized as worms or cherubic caterpillars. Who decided that the equivalent of a person who reads often is a filthy, writhing grub? What bully exalted the reader’s isolationist nature by making them the type of creature no one else wants to be around? Which jock determined that we’re ugly and dull instead of something sexier, flashier, like a peacock or a kitten?

  In this era of social media and rebranding, surely the same creative geniuses who made Pabst Blue Ribbon go from a cheap untouchable mix of water and grain to the favorite of millions of hipsters can do something about the term that holds back readers most.

  The time is now to claim our newest mascot. I propose the cat, for these reasons:

  CATS ARE KNOWN FOR BEING LONERS.

  Readers enjoy being utterly lost in their own world for hours. A night in is a godsend, not a bore.

  CATS DEVELOP QUIRKY HABITS.

  You think it’s weird when your cat hides between the wall and the back of the couch after it eats? Cats think it’s weird that you only read in bed with your right arm tucked under your body and your left hand holding the book up, and you use your nose to turn the page.

  CATS TEND TO BE STUBBORN.

  Try convincing a self-described “serious” reader to pick up a Harry Potter book. Or a Nicholson Baker fan to settle for a Dan Brown novel. Ever sell a reader on an author they previously despised? Didn’t think so.

  CATS LIKE TO CURL UP WITH/BY THINGS.

  There’s a reason the phrase is “curl up with a good book”; we’re catlike when we tighten our posture around the book, wrap a blanket around us, and burrow into the most comfortable position possible.

  CATS HOLD GRUDGES.

  Ever think you’ll forgive James Frey for A Million Little Pieces? Kind of like how your cat doesn’t know if she can forgive your boyfriend for the time he stepped on her.

  CATS ARE LOW-MAINTENANCE.

  The typical reader needs no sort of accessory other than possibly a pair of glasses and a bit of light.

  Fan Letters

  HAVE YOU EVER SPOKEN to a Phish fan about their relationship with Phish? It’s not a band that they turn on sometimes in the car, whose albums they own all of, or that they go see once a year. It’s a life. It’s a devotion that goes beyond the music; the fan becomes part of a culture. And this kind of fandom breeds expectation. You can’t call yourself a fan unless you fantasize nightly about touring with the band, show up at every concert within a day’s drive, and preorder their every release within three hours of its availability. And, take note, the more cultish the band is, the greater the commitment.

  Literature fans have it differently. And our fanaticism usually revolves around the books themselves, not the authors. The love is for Ishmael, not Melville. With great authors, it’s not until finishing a book that we’re reminded there was a puppet master as the author smiles up from the back cover. And even if we do develop crushes on Eugenides or Karr, we can only see our idols if they swing through our city on a book tour.

  Not every author has escaped from personal fans. Some authors in particular gather what might be called “cults of personality” around them. They are authors who, because of either the strength of their message, the idiosyncrasies of their personality, or the sheer romance of the worlds they conjure, inspire a devotion akin to the adulation reserved for rock stars and movie stars. But the authors are not the only ones to benefit from this fervor. The fans themselves assume a contact sheen depending on whom they choose to idolize—or they think they do. More often their allegiances reveal their personal aspirations, insecurities, and delusions—all of which probably existed before the idol-author came along. In any case, now allow me to berate the most blatant offenders of those who can be judged by the books they love to read.

  Open Letter to Ayn Rand Fans

  Oh Christ, we get it. Do you get it? How can you be so focused and not see that you’ve chosen the most transparent philosophy to live your life by? Women: Do it. Fuck like Francon and fight like Taggart. Go for it. Men: Go. Win. Make money. Don’t spend any time at home. Try in vain to create a tortured-genius persona as all-consuming as Howard Roark’s. Just don’t tell me you actually believe in objectivism as a real philosophy. Rand is an amazing storyteller, but to say that her philosophy is presently relevant is to be willfully blind.

  Open Letter to Yann Martel Fans

  Fans: let’s first give thanks to Moacyr Scliar for handing Martel the fully formed idea for Life of Pi. Scliar wrote the tale Max and the Cats, about a young man who has run away aboard a ship and ends up on a life raft with a jaguar. You haven’t heard of that book? It’s basically Life of Pi but without the sophomoric writing and overstated messages. And I just have to wonder how you steer around the awkward glances when someone asks your thoughts on Beatrice and Virgil, the genocide allegory that, he stated in an interview, he had the right to write because “the Jews don’t own the Holocaust.”

  Open Letter to Marcel Proust Fans

  I have a lot of admiration for you Proust fans. One, you seem to always spit whenever you pronounce his name. This is likely because you’re salivating over the pride you have for getting through all seven volumes of In Search of Lost Time without realizing how much time you were losing while doing so.

  Open Letter to Kurt Vonnegut Fans

  You’re lazy in your insanity. You’re erratic but not spaced out enough to be obscure. You don’t care for the norm but you don’t care to fall too outside of it. You like to read but you’re not a reader. You like to write but you’re not a writer. You like to exist but you’re not making a statement.

  Open Letter to Haruki Murakami Fans

  I can say without irony that you like good music. You do. And you know what? You heard about that band first. I get it. You’re “in the know.” You were the first person ever to hear of the band Phoenix. You were reading Murakami well before legions of college students who thought they were above Vonnegut got turned on to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Good thing you understand Murakami better than all those other kids.

  Open Letter to Miranda July Fans

  It’s an unfortunate truth that if everyone is acting “unconventional” with ironic text-speak and quirky, flea market dresses paired with printed tights, they are acting conventional. Although we can never fault July for her brilliance in bringing us the emoticon ))>><<(( via her movie Me and You and Everyone We Know, we can fault her for the onslaught of slam poet wannabes in our local coffee joints. Sure, she’s a welcome substitute for those manic-panic pixie dream girl Zooe
y Deschanel wannabes, but beyond a cool book title and great social media presence, where’s the substance in her writing?

  Open Letter to Gary Shteyngart Fans

  Do you even know how to spell his name? Or do you know precisely how to spell his name and you correct others on it? Are you only a fan of his because you can correctly spell his name? I bet you purposely type it in very quickly in Gmail Chat, so the person you’re talking to about how great Shteyngart is knows that you had no need to Google the spelling beforehand. I’m genuinely curious because the proper choice, if you’re trying to be a fan of contemporary satirists, is Sam Lipsyte. So I must assume you’ve chosen Shteyngart over Lipsyte because (first) you can spell his name and find that impressive and (second) you’ve been reading too much of the New York Times.

  Open Letter to Douglas Adams Fans

  You throw a party on May 25, Towel Day. You have a don’t panic poster on the wall in your bedroom. You add in “mostly” whenever you describe anything as “harmless.” You end e-mails to your friends with “So long and thanks for all the fish.” No toast is complete without “Share and enjoy.” To you, Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is appropriate to quote at any point. Your spastic quirks require you to say, “Forty-two,” whenever anyone begins to talk about the meaning of life. Your blog has the tagline “Life, the universe, and everything.” Keep in mind you’re annoying to those uninitiated in the jargon.

  Open Letter to Tim Ferriss fans

  Stop it, I don’t believe you. I don’t believe Ferriss can give a fifteen-minute orgasm to a woman with his 4-Hour Body as much as I don’t believe anyone who picks up The 4-Hour Workweek will actually accomplish it. I don’t want to see the residue of Ferriss’s influence when I e-mail you and receive an automatic response that states that you’re busy and will reply if necessary when it’s convenient. I want you to suffer alongside me in the dregs of e-mail hell.