June 11, 2010 Ask The Paris Review Assholedom, Henry James on Facebook By Lorin Stein Boy Reading, by Thomas Pollack Anshutz.I am leaving my girlfriend and I keep trying to be “nice” about it, but I don’t think it’s helping either of us. In fact, it’s just making this painful process take longer. I really need to be an asshole and steep myself in assholedom. Any suggestions for where to start? —E. Stigler, New York City “Where to start”? Where to start? What kind of asshole are you? You could try to pick up another woman and install her in your apartment, like Jean-Pierre Léaud in The Mother and the Whore. This will require a sidewalk cafe. Or you can nerve yourself up with Leonard Michaels’s novella Sylvia, all about a “nice” young man who stays in a miserable marriage, with disastrous consequences. Some guys swear by The Genealogy of Morals or the Maxims of La Rochefoucauld, or you could wallow in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men or that godawful Neil LaBute movie In the Company of Men. But if assholery doesn’t come naturally to you (and clearly it doesn’t), I recommend the eccentric but wise (and utterly absorbing) study Love and Limerence: The Experience of Being in Love, by the late Dorothy Tennov. Dr. Tennov argues persuasively that the kindest breakups are those that leave no room for hope. Be a mensch—pull the plug. Read More
June 4, 2010 Ask The Paris Review Reading Mojo, Friend Dumping By Lorin Stein Boy Reading, by Thomas Pollack Anshutz.I’m in a bad spot in my reading habits. I’ve been watching a lot of reality television, and I’ve cracked open half a dozen books, and abandoned them all. What would be good to get my reading mojo back? —S. Johnson, New York City Elmore Leonard, Rum Punch. Or really Elmore Leonard, anything. When I was a kid and convinced of the genius of Raymond Carver, I tried to get my father to read What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and my dad responded by giving me Leonard’s novel Glitz, explaining that Leonard had a better ear for dialogue—plus in his novels stuff actually happened. This of course was not fair to Raymond Carver. My father might also have pointed out that Leonard’s books are funny. The one trouble with Leonard, and the reason I no longer read his novels, is that I have real trouble putting them down. Also I never remember anything about them. All I remember about Rum Punch, for instance, is the title and that it kept me up all night. Post script: a friend who knows his way around reality TV suggests Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected as a sort of halfway house on the long road back to the novel. Judging from my one brush with The Real Housewives of New York, this is an excellent recommendation—Ramona and Kelly are Dahl characters come to life. Read More