leO

So . . . I wrote a letter to LEO (which stands for Louisville Eccentiric Observer, a free rag which proclaims that it is Louisville's urban alternative weekly--which is a misnomer on two counts, as Louisville cannot really be said to have an "urban" side, and as LEO is about as alternative as penny loafers).  Actually I'd written a letter the previous week because I was pissed at some anti-reading remarks by one of the columnists, but as the columnist is a friend of mine I declined the editor's offer to print the letter.  So this second letter was on the same topic, and since this time the writer who had offended my sensibilites was the editor of the paper, I acceded to having it printed.  It went like this:

My Dear Leo,

Once again I notice the thread of anti-literacy that has been showing up in LEO.  This time it's in a movie review of  Catching Fire, written by Sara Havens.  After expressing her interest in the movie, she writes, "I'm dying to know how it ends without having to crack open a book."  Really?  I'm hoping that what she meant was that she was uninterested in reading an adolescent novel based on recycled science fiction tropes, but that certainly isn't what she said. 

We have a nation full of children who brag about never reading a book.  Do we really need to encourage this kind of behavior--either deliberately or through sloppy writing?  For Christ's sake, enough of this.  Hey, I just read Stephen King's Dr. Sleep, and it was a great, thrilling experience--much better than any movie.  I'm also reading James Joyce's Finegans Wake, which is the most challenging book I've ever read, and I'm enjoying it immensely.  How about some of that?

Thomas Kalb  

They printed that letter, so I decided to write another.  I have been reading LEO o and on since its inception in 1990 (by John Yarmuth & Co.), and had grown increasingly dismayed by its steady slide into vapidity.  I was particularly roused to anger by a new column written by a young black woman which was so devoid of meaningful communication that it should have had a VACANCY sign hung on it.  So I wrote this:

Dear LEO,

How are you? Have you lost weight?  Well, you certainly are looking good. Maybe it's because you printed my anti-anti-reading letter in your last issue.  Speaking of which, since you were so receptive, I thought I'd write again.  A nice long letter this time . . . to tell you about what I've been reading this week.  Maybe you could cut it out and paste it over one of those dumb ass columns you've been running lately. (My particular not-favorite is the one by the woman who spent her entire column writing nasty things about a guy she dated because he used a nose spray in her presence.  Come on, now,  I know you can do better than that.  What was the point there?  Why give such a petty, small-minded person a forum?  Seriously, I feel that you owe we five minutes of my life back tor that one.)

So first off, yes, I am still reading Finnegan's Wake.  (And hey, could you please put that title in italics?  Former English teacher, you know.)  I'm almost to page 200 now.  I've been reading it out loud and that is great fun.  It actually forces you to acquire an Irish accent.  I catch the scatological humor . . . and most of the eschatological humor . . . but not much else, I 'll confess.  But it's still good stuff.  Besides, it's not a one and done kind of book.  I’ll be back.

I read Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier last week, and that immediately went to my top ten list.  It's an amazing book, filled with wisdom expressed in elegant language--primarily in excerpts from a book within the book, A Goldsmith of Words, by Dr. Amadeu Inácio de Almeida Prado.  Have you seen the movie Ulysses’ Gaze (1995)?  (If not, great movie.  Check it out.)  Night Train to Lisbon reminds me of that.  In the book, Gregorius, who has been living a very staid life as a teacher of languages, suddenly (prompted by a series of coincidences which jolt him out of his rut) leaves Bern and travels to . . . you guessed it, Lisbon.  And he goes by . . . ?  Right again.  One of the coincidences which prompts this departure from job and home is the acquisition of A Goldsmith of Words.  There is something about what Prado has to say in this book which pulls Gregorius in, and he ends up stumbling into a quest for the truth of Prado’s life (hence the parallel to Ulysses’ Gaze, in which Harvey Keittel’s character (A.) goes on a quest for a lost film which ends up becoming a quest for meaning in his own life).  Gregorius’s journey also becomes our own in that any thinking person must at some point consider what makes life meaningful and worthwhile. 

In terms of plot, Night Train to Lisbon is also about António de Oliveira Salazar’s brutal right-wing dictatorship in Portugal and the resistance movement which tried to oppose him.  While it is described as a “philosophical novel,” Night Train to Lisbon is far from the stodginess that such nomenclature might imply.  Perhaps it would be better described as Not a Superficial Novel.  It is not just about what happens.  It offers some food for the soul.

So enthralled was I by this book that once I learned that there was a movie version I felt the need to see it.  I’m sorry that I did so.  While there were some fine moments in the film—not the least of which was an appearance by Lena Olen, who at 58 years old is still amazingly beautiful and sexy—but the heart of the novel had been scooped out and replaced by a kazoo. 

Shortly after I closed the book, I began to read Perlmann’s Silence, which is (alas!) the only only Pascal Mercier book which has been translated into English.  I’m only 30 pages in at the moment, but I’m already pretty taken with it.  If I finish it in the next few days, I’ll write to you again and tell you all about it.

Thanks for listening, LEO.  And if you’re not interested in using this letter as wallpaper to cover up the ugly stain of one of those columns, would you at least do us all a favor and just print the name of the woman’s column and her picture and leave us some nice, cozy white space instead of the shit smear of her ill-considered words?  Seriously, you’d add a couple of World Classiness Points to Louisville’s score this week just by doing that.

XOXO,

Thomas Kalb

P.S.  I know it’s rather ignorant to refer to “that woman’s column” instead of doing the two seconds’s worth of research it would take to find her name, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it.  Sorry.

Smartass is just one of the languages I am fluent in.  (Hey, I grew up with three sisters.  What would you have done?)  Just sent this one off this morning, but I anxiously await a reply.  I may not get one, of course, but I thought it was worth a shot, ya know?  There is quite enough shit in this world, and I don't understand why people just blithely ignore it.  It's time to take a stand, brothers & sisters.  Say it with me, "I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to ignore your vapid shit anymore!"