THE
REVIEW OF SHORT BOOKS & DECENT ALBUMS

By
Jonathan Hill

Who
knows if writing this baptismal column at Pastimes on a Thursday night is a good
idea or a magnificent idea?  It turns out
to my surprise and dismay that Thursday night at Pastimes is not cheap wings
and cheap whiskey night, sadly, no.  Instead,
it is acoustic/Barcardi/everyone singsalong Night.  The former was my entire earthly reason for
studying so hard and efficiently earlier in the day.  Honestly, I was really looking forward to
some wings.  That is all.  This hasn’t been the finest week of my 1L
year, especially after receiving the Office Memo #1 assignment in Legal Writing
on the day before and it felt like the mountain of school work was blowing my
mind, melting my face, and probably rendering me sterile all at once.

           So: I like acoustic music, but I
don’t like acoustic nights.  I won’t go
into it here because there is a word count (as some bar-girly is screaming,
“Encore!” and some dude is shouting back at her or the other bar-girly wobbling
on two legs next to her, “Your name?” right before the musician dude goes into
the easiest song to play in the history of overplayed acoustic music,
“Wonderwall” by Oasis) and I’m trying to eat mozzarella sticks. P.S., Sierra
Nevada Pale Ale is five times better in a bottle than on draft.

Needless to say, I review short
books and decent albums.  

            The
Name of the World by Denis Johnson is a short novel at 129 pages, but it is
also a burst of literary genius published in 2000.  Johnson, if one is unfamiliar with his work,
won the 2007 National Book Award for his novel, Tree of Smoke.  Also, the
other short book by Johnson one must read if one tends to believe that one is
alive is his iconic collection of masterful stories, Jesus’ Son.  One may also
watch the movie that stars Billy Crudup as FH, but read the book first.   

            Personally, I purchased The Name of the World in Y2K and never
bothered to read it until I packed up my bougie clothes, a Big Gulp filled with
pens/highlighters/pencils, and a small supply of cigars and moved to
Valparaiso.  I won’t go into it here, but
I kinda like Valpo, Pastimes, and this book. 
Amazon.com gave the book three out of five stars. That is 1-2 stars
short of the mark.

            Mike Reed is a widower, a Professor
of History at a no-name university in a Midwestern college town.  Reed has nowhere to go, so he goes
nowhere.  Not to another job, not to another
real woman, or to another realm where pain and loss stop Dancing with the Stars on his head. 
But there is surreal beauty to be found at almost every turn in the book
because Reed chases impressions, observations, and small talk.  Also, he has to go somewhere eventually, and
to misquote a serious poet, Reed goes where he has to go: to church, casinos,
campus, to the end of his grief.  Another
way of saying that is the bright end of most men and women will be the ultimate
measure of their search.  This book has
taught me that much.     

            Don’t quote me verbatim, but Johnson
pulls all the trendy American fiction tricks that the
bloggy-ultraviolent-emotionless generation of writers below him tries to pull
without a single firework: “My friend slugged me.  His fist snaked out like the knotted end of a
whip and struck my forehead and the bridge of my nose.  A polar whiteness exploded in my face.  And although I wasn’t out, didn’t sleep, my
thoughts all turned to questions, and I tipped over onto the floor.  Sat there trying to push myself upright.  I’m sure everybody thought I was drunk.”  

            On the subject of surreal beauty, I
have a musical recommendation. 

The new self-titled album from
Bon Iver. 

Bon Iver (if spelled properly,
the name translates in French as “good winter”) is Justin Vernon.  Another Midwestern, folk-indie juggernaut who
recorded his first album For Emma,
Forever Ago in a remote cabin in the woods of Wisconsin after his life fell
apart, essentially, Vernon created an instant classic on his debut, a haunting,
spare, yet full-blooded sonic Bigfoot. 
For proof of this sonic Bigfoot, please visit Youtube.com and checkout
Bon Iver’s La Blogotheque performance of “Skinny Love” live in Paris (search:
Bon Iver Skinny Love A Take Away Show).     

The self-titled album is better
than Bon Iver’s first offering.  Released
in June of this year, it comes across as another haunting and spare thing
matched, finally, with drums.  It’s an
album best heard during the surprise of dusk or on a late night walk home from
the bar.  I mean school.