A Brief Tour of the Chicago Public Library

Having recently moved to Chicago and acclimating myself to a new and somehow inhospitable tundra of concrete, becoming familiar with the public library system became an important goal. So while the Chicago Public Library hasn’t failed me in regards to its selection, the reserve process allows potential readers enough time to write their own prose long enough to take up an entire book.

So as I lament the slowness with which the CPL operates, let us take a moment to reflect briefly on two selections recently donned by my night-stand.

Slowness by Milan Kundera

I don’t generally read authors who work in fiction that are still alive. It’s not a rule, just something that’s happened and has only to do with my working through the back log of undeniable classics that litter every bookstore and library shelf.

Not quite thirty years into writing fiction, Milan Kundera crafted a piece of prose that was able to incorporate not just multiple stories, but multiple epochs in time around a single building. At first the narrative is nothing short of difficult to follow as it weaves in and out of characters and situations. Eventually, though, readers are going to figure it out. The thing is, the book’s pretty bloody short, so one might be almost finished prior to realizing what’s actually going on.

Either way, the concept that Kundera uses to construct the narrative might be as interesting as what actually transpires – apart from the scene in and around the pool, at least. It’s not a bad read and considering that the prose is pretty digestible, it’ll work well on commutes as one is invariably stuck on a train or bus.

Country: The Twisted Roots Of Rock 'n' Roll by Nick Tosches

Completely unrelated to Kundera’s work, Tosches mostly writes non-fiction. And a great deal of his writing focuses on music from the ‘70s and earlier. There’re a few higher profile works than Country, but this book was the writer’s first effort.

In that fact it should be noted that later in his career Tosches would wind up being one of the more adept writers to comment on music. One might not always agree with his perspective, but the way in which he’s now able to work in random gasps of breathy prose among the music commentary is really unmatched – and no, I don’t wanna hear about Lester Bangs.

Anyway, Country simply finds Tosches hashing out the sordid back story of American music. Each chapter seems to have been written independently of one another as there’s not more than a modicum of self referencing. But in that, Country functions as a few, well crafted essays on the confluence of country, jazz, blues and rockabilly.

Surely, there’s a little bit more on Elvis than most would desire, but he was an important player in the development of America’s music, like it or not. Some of the other bulky sections here – the work on Jerry Lee Lewis and Emmitt Miller – would eventually turn into long form work. So, while Country finds Tosches during his formative years, it’s just hinting at what was to follow.