Reading Deprivation

Fine Print: No Alaska books this week. No books at all. Oh my.

What I’m reading now: Nothing. Ack! But as soon as this week is over, I’ll return to “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere” by ZZ Packer, “Letters to a Young Novelist” by Mario Vargas Llosa and “Julius Caesar” by William Shakespeare (none Alaskan).

In a bout of energy to reconnect with my inner creative self, I picked up “The Artist’s Way” by Julia Cameron. I began the twelve-week course four or five years ago and stopped somewhere around week two or three, retaining nothing but my morning pages, which I adore and crave if neglected. It has taken me two months to get to Week 4, but that’s all right. Except, that one of this week’s tasks is reading deprivation. Are you kidding me? I know. It sounds ridiculous, but she sees it as a purging of other voices and forcing your own productivity. I have to say, I have been writing and thinking like a self-sustaining fireworks display. A constant Pop! But it is weird and out of my routine, not an easy thing to rearrange for an OCD person like me. No newspaper, no fiction, no internet, no magazines. However shall I eat my breakfast and lunch? (Quickly, it turns out.) I’m only writing emails and checking them if necessary. Also little or no TV and radio because they too can poison the well.

I’m restless and have trouble concentrating on talk radio. And it’s only Tuesday.

Beluga Days by Nancy Lord

Fine Print: I have not finished. I’m sorry, dear blog reader. I know I let you down. And if this was for some publication that paid me enough to buy this week’s groceries or at least some fresh veggies for dinner, then I would have slogged through. I do intend to pick it up again because the fate of the Cook Inlet beluga is the fate of all animals in Alaska.

What I’m reading now: Affinity by Sarah Waters

Quoted in the book: “The beluga can act like the canary in the coal mine, as an indicator of ecosystem health.” –Bob Shavelson of Cook Inlet Keeper

If belugas are your favorite animal, then please pick up this book as soon as possible. In “Beluga Days: Tracking the Endangered White Whale,” Nancy Lord travels all around—outings to tag and track the whales, meetings on belugas and trips to aquariums—and interviews all sorts of people to learn as much as she can about this creature. In her often elegant prose, she presents different sides of the whale debate, careful to tread respectfully around Native Alaska hunting and culture. The book also extends beyond belugas to a side of Alaska tourists (and residents) miss and teaches about how political the endangered species listing is. In the paperback version, she has a new preface about recent developments.

But, really, whose favorite animal is the beluga? They are not as cool as killer whales or big enough to swallow a fishing boat and inspire legends. They might make nice meals for those that enjoy that sort of thing. And it might be fun to spot their white and gray humps when kayaking, but now there are so few belugas in Cook Inlet that either activity is unlikely; an estimated 300 exist. Do you have to be a fan to turn the pages of this book? No, but it would help.

Lord has a literary, essay-like style and a subtle sense of humor (“moments stuck with me like sea lice to the side of salmon”), but she works so hard to present a balanced, fully researched point of view that sometimes it gets a little dull. Informative! Thorough! Enough to give me nightmares about whales when I made the mistake of reading it before bed, but not quite enough to stop me from reading a couple other books since starting it. The problem is: It is a lot of beluga.

You care because you know you’re supposed to care. You don’t want another creature to go extinct or politicians to manipulate the system, but after a while the most interesting thing about the beluga story are the people she interviews and they come and go.

Cook Inlet belugas made the front page April 20 when the National Marine Fisheries Service proposed to list the belugas an endangered, www.fakr.noaa.gov. In 2000, NMFS determined the belugas were not endangered, prompting a lot of controversy which Lord covers in her book. According to the Anchorage Daily News article, public comment on the listing are due by June 19. The paper quoted Sen. Ted Stevens as saying “This is being spearheaded by people who want to stop development in the Cook Inlet region.” Rep. Don Young said, “This whole thing is out of whack.”

The International Whaling Commission meets this month in Anchorage.

The Mountaineers Books, 272 pages, $16.95

David Sedaris was here

Fine Print: Not an Alaskan. Not a book about Alaska. Just a literary good time.

What I’m reading now: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord. Still. I’m probably too slow a reader for a literary blog, but I’m having fun.

David Sedaris nearly filled the 2,000-seat Atwood Concert Hall last night. It was so nice to see so many people out in support of a queer writer. All the literary liberal types replaced their fleece for slacks and put on their best square glasses for the occasion. KSKA 91.1 and Title Wave Books brought him up here, and Bede Trantina, station manager at KSKA who introduced Sedaris, got almost as much applause as the headliner. What a bunch of NPR geeks we are.

And Sedaris was just as funny, witty and observant as always. The images and juxtapositions he shared will stay with me for a long time. And the laugh therapy was worth the admission. I’m not sure about reading the zombie books he recommended though…

Read what ADN art reporter Dawnell Smith thought about the night.

What others say: Yiddish Policemen’s Union by Michael Chabon

Fine Print: I haven’t read this book yet, but it came out Tuesday and is already number 7 on Amazon so I thought I’d include an entry. Also check a New York Times article on literary blogs and the decline of newspaper reviewers—relevant especially to me since this blog developed because I wanted to have a book column for the Anchorage Daily News but they said they didn’t have the money to pay me—for a column or reviews.

What I’m reading now: Beluga Days by Nancy Lord

Anchorage Daily News:
The ADN picked the novel as its May book club pick. There will be an author reading and book signing at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 29th at Title Wave Books, 1360 W. Northern Blvd. Free, but tickets required.

Novel involving Alaska Jewish colony is rooted in history
by Tom Kizzia
Imagine, if you please, a city of 3.2 million people on the shores of Baranof Island around Sitka. The official language is Yiddish, the inhabitants are Jews, and their lights stretch across the in...

Associated Press

Chabon creates alternate reality in `Yiddish Policeman's Union'
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - A wartime proposal to turn Alaska into a sanctuary for Jews fleeing the rising Nazi menace failed. But suppose it hadn't.

Chabon sets Jewish homeland in Alaska in new book
Michael Chabon: When did great writers quit telling great stories? That was Michael Chabon's complaint in his introduction to "McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales" ...

New York Times
Looking for a Home in the Limbo of Alaska
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI
From the moment of his precocious debut in 1988 with “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh,” it was clear that Michael Chabon was an immensely gifted writer and a magical prose stylist.

The Frozen Chosen
By Patricia Cohen
ASIDE from geography, Sitka, a boomerang-shaped island in the southeastern panhandle of Alaska, has very little in common with the imaginary city named Sitka conjured up by Michael Chabon in his latest book, “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union.”

HarperCollins. 414 pages. $26.95