Arts & Events: Books & Talks - Washington City Paper

Reviewed: The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason
Reinventing the man of twists and turns.

Book Reviews By Ted Scheinman

Odysseus was never at a loss for a story—or for a disguise. In the Cyclops’ cave he was Nobody; in Eumaeus’ hut, a Trojan; to Athena on Ithaca, a ruthless fugitive from Crete. Glib, watchful, quick with a lie, Odysseus is the original hoodwinking hero. Zachary Mason has taken that very equivocacy as a guiding principle for his first novel. In The Lost Books of the Odyssey, the man of twists and turns is all of the above and more: a coward, an ingrate, a doppelganger, a patient at a sanitarium, the inventor of Achilles, the lover of Helen, a reader of the Odyssey or its witting or unwitting author. Mason—computer programmer by day, revisionist mythologist by night—“retells” the epic in 44 episodes. Some episodes focus on a glossed-over scene from the 24-book original; some pose counterfactual dimensions. All involve a meticulous narrative refraction matched by the indelible precision of the prose—the language, at times, of myth. The book has been billed alternately as a hobbyist pastiche or a Borgesian mind-fuck; Mason, for his part, invokes Calvino and Polish science-fiction writer Stanislaw Lem, and at points The Lost Books recalls both Updike’s Gertrude and Claudius (a straight-narrative retelling whose language modernizes over the course of three acts) and Paul Bowles’ Points in Time (a series of disconnected, epigrammatic episodes that attempts a history of Morocco in just north of 100 pages). The real premise, meanwhile, is to engage the relationship between fiction and myth and the central weapon in Odysseus’ arsenal: the knowledge that whoever controls the story controls the war. Narrative threads unr... Continued

Reviewed: My Ear at His Heart: Reading My Father by Hanif Kureishi
A novelist known for thinly veiled autobiography traces his famililal relationships
Book Reviews By Rayyan Al-Shawaf
Reviewed: The Lost Books of the Odyssey by Zachary Mason
Reinventing the man of twists and turns.
Book Reviews By Ted Scheinman
Reviewed: Joshua Ferris' The Unnamed
A man with a mysterious ailment becomes a martyr to the unknown
Book Reviews By Amy Cavanaugh
Reviewed: Patti Smith's Just Kids
Patti Smith remembers the artist in her life, Robert Mapplethorpe.
Book Reviews By Eve Ottenberg
Reviewed: Don Lattin's The Harvard Psychedelic Club
How four radical scholars helped usher the ideas of the 1960s into the mainstream.
Book Reviews By Rayyan Al-Shawaf
The Year in Books
E-books demanded to be taken seriously, even if Kindle users can't make that claim.
Cover Story By Mark Athitakis
Reviewed: Diamonds in the Raw
A look at the D.C. rap scene beyond Wale
Book Reviews By Andrew Noz
Reviewed: Amy Bach's Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court
Bach pondering whether or not to let sleeping lawyers lie
Book Reviews By Eve Ottenberg

Books Picks

Jules Feiffer at Politics and Prose
Thursday, March 18
Jules Feiffer, one of the best cartoonists alive, just turned 81 and published Backing into Forward: A Memoir. Feiffer’s best-known comic strip was Sick, Sick, Sick (later retitled Feiffer), an...
Jules Feiffer at Politics and Prose
Thursday, March 18
Jules Feiffer, one of the best cartoonists alive, just turned 81 and published Backing into Forward: A Memoir. Feiffer’s best-known comic strip was Sick, Sick, Sick (later retitled Feiffer), an...

Event Calendar: This Week in Books

Fri. Mar. 12, 2010 - Thu. Mar. 18, 2010

FATHER GREGORY BOYLE
Discusses and signs copies of Tattoos on the Heart.
Borders L Street,, 1801 K St. NW. Tue., 3/16, at 6 p.m. Free. (202) 466-4999.
HUGH AMBROSE
Discusses and signs copies of The Pacific.
Barnes & Noble Tysons Corner,, 8027 Leesburg Pike, Vienna. Wed., 3/17, at 7 p.m. Free. (703) 556-7766.
DEBORAH AMOS
Discusses and signs copies of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Tue., 3/16, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
ADELE BARKER
Discusses and signs copies of Not Quite Paradise: An American Sojourn in Sri Lanka.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Mon., 3/15, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
WILLIAM PETER BLATTY
Discusses and signs copies of Dimiter.
Barnes & Noble Bethesda,, 4801 Bethesda Ave., Bethesda. Tue., 3/16, at 7 p.m. Free. (301) 986-1761.
KATIE BOWLER & JOHN MURILLO
Read their poetry from State Street & Up Jump the Boogie.
Writer's Center,, 4508 Walsh St., Bethesda. Sun., 3/14, at 2 p.m. Free. (301) 654-8664.
IAN BURUMA
Discusses and signs copies of Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Fri., 3/12, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
SHEILA CURRAN
Discusses and signs copies of Everyone She Loved.
Barnes & Noble Downtown,, 555 12th St. NW. Tue., 3/16, at 6:30 p.m. Free. (202) 347-0176.
HERNDON DAVIS
Discusses and signs copies of Repackaged Common Sense.
Busboys & Poets 5th & K,, 1025 5th St. NW. Sat., 3/13, at 5:30 p.m. Free. (202) 789-2227.
JULES FEIFFER
Discusses and signs copies of Backing Into Forward: A Memoir.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Thu., 3/18, at 4 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
TIMOTHY M. GAY
Discusses and signs copies of Satch, Dizzy and Rapid Robert.
Borders Tysons Corner,, 8027 Leesburg Pike, Vienna. Tue., 3/16, at 7:30 p.m. Free. (703) 556-7766.
MICHAEL GELB
Discusses and signs copies of Wine Drinking for Inspired Thinking.
Zola Wine & Kitchen,, 505 9th St. NW. Mon., 3/15, at 6 p.m. $60, Includes wine tasting. (301) 229-1128.
THOMAS KAUFMAN
Discusses and signs copies of Drink the Tea: A Mystery.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Sun., 3/14, at 1 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
ANNIE LEONARD
Discusses and signs copies of The Story of Stuff: How Our Obsession with Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities, and Our Health-and a Vision for Change.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Sun., 3/14, at 5 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
MICHAEL LEWIS
Discusses and signs copies of The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Thu., 3/18, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
JACK F. MATLOCK JR.
Discusses and signs copies of Superpower Illusions: How Myths about the Cold War’s End Have Poisoned U.S.-Russian Relations.
Wilson International Center,, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Mon., 3/15, at noon. Free. (202) 691-4000.
SERHII PLOKHY
Discusses Yalta: The Price of Peace.
Wilson International Center,, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. Thu., 3/18, at 4 p.m. Free. (202) 691-4000.
COKIE & STEVE ROBERTS
Discuss and sign copies of From Every End of This Earth: 13 Families and the New Lives They Made in America & Ladies of Liberty:The Women Who Shaped Our Nation.
GWU Marvin Center,, Grand Ballroom, 800 21st St. NW. Mon., 3/15, at 5 p.m. Free. (202) 994-5392.
TOM SHACHTMAN
Discusses Airlift to America: How Barack Obama Sr., John F Kennedy, Tom Mboya and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours.
Library of Congress,, Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. SE. Fri., 3/12, at noon. Free. (202) 707-1979.
HELEN SIMONSON
Discusses and signs copies of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Sat., 3/13, at 6 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
MICHELLE SINGLETARY
Discusses and signs copies of The Power to Prosper.
Borders Bowie,, 4420 Mitchellville Rd., Bowie. Sat., 3/13, at 2 p.m. Free. (301) 352-5560.
NGUGI WA'THIONG'O
Discusses and signs copies of Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Wed., 3/17, at 7 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
GINA WELCH
Discusses and signs copies of In the Land of Believers: An Outsider's Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church.
Politics and Prose,, 5015 Connecticut Ave. NW. Sat., 3/13, at 1 p.m. Free. (202) 364-1919.
TIM WENDEL
Discusses and signs copies of Fastest Pitcher of All Time.
Barnes & Noble Alexandria,, 3651 Jefferson Davis Hwy., Alexandria. Tue., 3/16, at 7 p.m. Free. (703) 299-9124.
JASON F. WRIGHT
Discusses and signs copies of The Cross Gardener.
Borders Baileys Crossroads,, 5871 Crossroads Center Way,Baileys Crossroads. Wed., 3/17, at 7:30 p.m. Free. (703) 998-0404.