Traveling Sprinkler, by Nicholson Baker. I just finished this book, and I don’t know how to tell you about it. No, I do: it was like having a male relative, age 55, chat to you about everything he’s interested in, sometimes in such detail you wonder where he gets the self-assurance. But even though you are not particularly interested in those things (bassoons, Debussy, cigars, dance music, Quakers, drones), you find you need to sit by your computer while reading the book because you keep wanting to look things up. I listened to Debussy’s “The Sunken Cathedral.” I looked up bassoons and listened to them being played. I investigated what kind of liquor Tyrconnell is, and the next time I go to the liquor store I’m going to see how much it costs.
I would say I was kind of bored, reading it, and yet it made me interested in things—not just the things he describes, but things in general. It was pleasing to observe someone else being interested in things, even if I wasn’t interested in them myself. It made me want to be interested in things, too. And I really hoped his girlfriend would take him back.
I realized after reading the book that I’d read another by the author: The Fermata. It’s about a man who can stop time whenever he wants to. So what he does is, he uses this power to sneak into women’s houses, take their clothes off, and position their bodies and/or molest them. He considers this a loving, worshipful thing to do. I don’t remember much else about the book except that I was extremely annoyed and creeped out by it: I’d asked a male friend about his favorite books and he’d recommended this one, and I have written the end of this sentence half a dozen ways and how about if instead we just sit here for a minute and feel the hostile feelings welling up in our throats.
Anyway, that book was written twenty years before this one, when the author was more 35 than 55. I think 55 is working better for him, I’ll say THAT. Well, or working better for ME.
Um. Not sure what to say about the other book. But I played the bassoon for four years (in middle/high school) so now I want to see what he has to say about them!
Are you still friends with that guy? Because . . . ew.
(Yes, I totally judge people by their book choices. Live how you want, love who you want, eat what you want, I don’t care; but if you love a book that I can’t stand, our friendship is probably over.)
I will google him because I’m curious about his name. Nicholson seems to be very on trend for a baby/preschooler, moreso than a 57 y.o. It does not seem to be a pseudonym.
So, super power used to sexually assault women instead of oh, fight crime or stop tragedy. There’s a winner.
People are horrible sometimes.
When I was in my 20s and a little more full of myself/oh so sure I had highly literate tastes, Nicholson Baker was my favorite author. I just loved The Mezzanine. That was almost 2 decades ago but I’d still recommend it if you liked the observational nature of this one.
I read another Nicholson Baker book (The Mezzanine) in a college class a few years ago. Traveling Sprinkler sounds more engaging!
Another author we read in that class was W.G. Sebald. Sebald has that same quality of making you want to look up everything he meanders on about, but he is more emotional and dramatic than Baker (which I like). If you haven’t read him before, Austerlitz would be a good place to start, or The Rings of Saturn.
Nicholson Baker’s The Box of Matches is (in my opinion) a very good book too, that makes you think or want to think of lots of things. I like his writing. At the moment, I am reading The Size of Thoughts.
I love your book reviews.
I know what you mean about liking to see other people interested in things. I belong to a book club that generally spends at least 4 meetings per book and the first meeting is a lecture by a professor or grad student who is an expert on the book (they tend to be classics) and I am always energized by how much the lecturer clearly loves the book. (Last night we started the Iliad.)
Oh and I don’t even know what to say about that other book…
I have seen ten minutes of a movie like that second book! I don’t know if it was based on it or anything but it was one of those recommended for you on Netflix movies and we watched some guy freeze time and take off women’s clothes in a supermarket for ten minutes before we turned it off in disgust.
This book must be the sequel to the one book I’ve read by Baker, The Anthologist. I felt the same way about it you did: in my blog post on it, I called it self-deprecating blather. But the other book was about poetry, and it made me interested in the poetry he talked about, which was a big bonus. I approached the book with a lot of skepticism because of his other awful books (including The Fermata and Vox, which is about phone sex.) But I liked it okay in the end.
Oh my goodness, I’ve read that Fermata book! It was about 20 years ago too! I had no recollection of it’s title or who wrote it, but I recognize it instantly from your description. It left a lasting impression but it was not a favourable one and I’ve thought about it since along the lines of “How freakin’ random was it that I picked up that book at the university library?” and “Surely I must have been the only one who read it, since I’ve never seen anyone else mention it, ever.”
Now I know I’m not the only one.
Augh! A classic “it’s” vs “its” typo in my comment above! Avert your eyes!
Ew, ew, ew. Worshipful?! No!
I read The Fermata after reading a favourable review (WTF?) and I’ve been unable to wipe the author’s name from my mind, so I never would have picked up another book by him if I hadn’t read this. Because ew, ew, ew. And that someone would recommend it, and then possibly think about you reading it…… GAH, there aren’t really enough expletives.
Well, Swistle, you should know that your combined Tyrconnell/Traveling Sprinkler posts have triggered a fit of Scotch and Scottish reading in my house! I also found myself itching to google the Sunken Cathedral and a picture of a bassoon, but also found myself skimming quickly the sections on electronic music and drone warfare. I wanted more of him and Roz and their unequal yoking, less of the classical music electronic music blah blah blah. But I couldn’t put it down until I got to the end of the book, so it’s got momentum for sure. Also thanks to your read who mentioned Outlander as a Scotch-drinking reference, I am still reading it while convalescing from a surgery with more reading time than I know what to do with. Now that book is all plot and no exposition! They contrast nicely :)
YES, I wanted more about Roz too!