I am not always the best listener and I do not always enjoy readings. Oftentimes there are the agitated shoulders, glancing eyes, and requisite hands-holding-drinks-while-pointing gestures of some sort of edgy literary scene. Authors tend to swallow their words or make too much of a self-conscious mess of themselves to be heard clearly. For some reason, I usually feel a need to urinate and spend the reading vaguely uncomfortable and distracted. Last night's Housing Works reading, with Diane Williams, Ben Marcus, and Deb Olin Unferth, was a distinct and delightful departure.

I have to give some credit to Housing Works, an organization that uses all proceeds to help people living with HIV/AIDS. Its bookstore and café are incredibly inviting: tall shelves, plenty of dark wood moldings, thin windows that stretch above the bookcases beside them. It is utterly unpretentious while maintaining a lot of class.

The most credit, however, has to do with how well our three authors read. My love for each of the night's readers is a matter of public record; cf. my posts about The Flame Alphabet and Vicky Swanky is a Beauty. But it had been a long time since I really felt pleasure from hearing a text rather than simply being alone with it. For the most part, I prefer reading alone and am often jarred when an author’s voice doesn’t align with the voice I’ve conjured in my head. And while none of the three authors read in the voice I had imagined, each brought to the text something I hadn’t heard before.

I don’t know how this happens. Surely, our three authors are not amateurs and experience has to have something to do with it. But there was something in their voices, in their presence while reading, that surpassed a person reciting text. They weren’t mere vehicles for words, but they weren’t actors either; there wasn’t an insincere sense of performance. I think what mattered was a sincere investment in the words themselves. A desire, firstly, to bring the sentences forth.

Maybe it was only that Deb Olin Unferth has an adorably high, authoritative voice and then Ben got up there with a really deep voice and spoke measurably slow but bitingly, and then Diane spoke in unpredictable cadences and with grace and movement. Maybe they used these devious tricks in order to delight me. And it worked. 

So let's get off our computers. Stop texting or tweeting or scanning or browsing. Go listen.

Image: housingworks.org

Ben Marcus is so hot right now. With reviews and interviews in New York Magazine, The New York Times, NPR, Wired, The Millions, Salon,Bookforum, HTMLGiant, and Publisher’s Weekly, it’s hard not to describe the publication of The Flame Alphabet as a very big deal. While many of the reviews remark on how the book's linear narrative is a departure from Marcus’ other, “more difficult” books, the central conflict—that the speech of children is somehow killing off adults—is anything but conventional. And since our theme this month is "Relative Perversions," I’d like to offer up the top five perversions at play that, regardless of "linear" or "difficult," make the book so compelling.  

5. Perverse Fear. The lethal-language-of-kids notion is, somehow, very correct. How could the young not be the end of us? Like any good virus, the disease mutates, becomes a more efficient killing machine by transforming all language into a vector of fatal harm. The questions raised by such an attack are both entirely personal and too enormous to digest. What effects do our words have on other people? Is there a way of speaking without causing harm? How could the world function without language?

4. Perverse Perseverance. So. Any and all language is killing your wife and causing your own very rapid deterioration. What’s a father to do? Work. Feverish, futile work. The father’s determination to keep his family together is the force driving the whole novel. Here is the activity of Beckett (“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”) and the activity we all desperately cling to while our lives swarm uncontrollably on. Wait, what? I don’t think I know what I’m saying, but I like thinking about it.

3. The Perversion of Failure. The Flame Alphabet is rich with objects that are somehow both textually vivid and kind of impossible to imagine. As a reader, this is to experience the perverse failure of language first-hand. These objects are alive, resonant...but I somehow can’t manage to see them. This is delightful. This is an effect that causes me to lean further in.

2. The Perversion of Belief. The Flame Alphabet also explores what happens when a man has to reconcile certain fundamental beliefs with an impossible new reality. Our protagonist is assailed by different authorities (scientists, doctors, rabbis) who make him question whether understanding is desirable, if even possible. This is my favorite kind of game. What usefulness does knowledge have? If an idea can be understood, is it lifeless?

1. Perverse Sexy Time. There are some adorable moments of catastrophically awkward sex: "To prove her vigor, Claire cornered me, sexually, made a physical trespass. Seeking, it would seem, someone to leak on." I know not everyone’s into that kind of thing, but I find a certain charm in these descriptions of failed engagement: the private longing, the humiliation.

And hey, even if perversion isn't really your thing, you should probably read The Flame Alphabet in order to advance, sexually, with Columbia students, or to find out how this novel fits in with Marcus' obsession with men trapped in holes. One of the best things a book can do is provide the space and time and the tiny pushes your brain needs in order to proceed with curiosity. The Flame Alphabet does this astoundingly well.

Image: New York Magazine

Intrigued by the trend of clothing stores using books as props, as noted by the Paris Review, and peeking into some of the most anticipated books of 2012, I thought it might be useful to provide a kind of style guide that could help readers match their outfits to their reading material. After all, no one wants to be caught on the train reading David Foster Wallace in an Armani suit (reeking of effort) or lounging at the coffee shop in sweatpants reading Joan Didion (too depressing).

The Flame Alphabet by Ben Marcus

The most important thing to keep in mind while preparing an outfit to go along with Ben Marcus’ new novel is that you are not a student at Columbia. Every student at Columbia has already read it, and why are you trying to impress twenty-year-olds anyway? That is gross. Find accessories that make you look older, like a super worn leather book bag (no totes, please), or a sweater that once belonged to your grandfather. Twenty-year-olds totally dig old vintage stuff.

Threats by Amelia Gray

If you’re spending the afternoon at a cafe in Greenpoint and have a lot of scarves, and maybe you even got into that weird feather hair clip thing for a minute but totally don’t wear it anymore cause that was so 2011, you might want to drop Amelia Gray into your tote bag (yes, tote bag).

Hot Pink by Adam Levin

This is one of the few anticipated 2012 novels that you can safely wear sneakers while reading. For the most part, tennis shoes are unacceptable, but choice of footwear is somehow forgiven in the case of Adam Levin. Just be careful: the assumption will be that you’re too intellectually distracted to notice that you’re wearing sneakers, so make sure to look around in surprise every once in a while.

When I Was a Child I Read Books by Marilynne Robinson

Marilynne Robinson is really best read at home, but if you insist on parading her around in public, the least you can do is dress sensibly. Loose sweaters paired with a thin pants and oxfords would do nicely. Be careful not to apply too much makeup; mascara alone should do it.

The Newlyweds by Nell Freudenberger

Even if you don’t own a single item of Chanel clothing, you should look like you have at least one essential go-to Chanel jacket in your wardrobe (likely handed down from a family member) while reading Nell Freudenberger. Any floral print or chiffon dress would work splendidly.

Daniel Fights a Hurricane by Shane Jones

Have you been dying to wear that old army jacket you bought at Salvation Army in 1994, but don’t know how to pull it off without looking like an agro-political grunge throwback? Enter Daniel Fights a Hurricane. The presence of this novel alone will tell us that you’re not on your way to OWS, but rather on a brief hiatus from your time on the internet.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to get a haircut till after you’ve finished reading.

Front image: vulpeslibris.wordpress.com; book cover images: flavorwire.com