What We're Reading: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn

I've been writing about The Lost for the past several months.

I did finally finish the book, and it turns out that once you're past the first 50 or so pages, it's an emotional drain. The whole way.

I'm glad I wove some fluffy fiction in throughout the book.

I'm also very glad I read it.

In the end, Mendelsohn finds his family. He even stands in the spot where his grandfather's brother and his daughter hid – a three-by-three basement, about eight feet deep.

For the spatially challenged among you, imagine eating, sleeping, going to the toilet, resting and everything else you could do, in your refrigerator.

With your daughter.

Or your father.

Mendelsohn is able to touch the earth where his great-uncle and his mother's cousin were shot after they were discovered.

It's a long, exhausting journey; you should take it yourself to see how he gets there.

The author spent the better part of seven years writing the book. Eight people who were instrumental to the writing died between the time Mendelsohn met them and the time the book was published. Except for one one of them – who died just before Mendelsohn was able to meet her, though he did get to speak with her on the phone.

One thing that strikes me about the book is the way Mendelsohn is able to organize the narrative for his readers. It's a long, convoluted journey. There's some fact, there's some speculation, there are a lot of contradictory stories.

Another thing that strikes me is the amount of help Mendelsohn is able to dig up. Not only from his family (between his parents' stories and his brother's photography) and his teachers (one travels with him more than once), but from total strangers – a younger man who happens to be studying the Jews of the area from which his family came carts him around Poland and Ukraine, translating, for days at a time; a man who has already taken it upon himself to track down all the survivors from the area carts him around Israel, translating.

Serendipity, kindness, coincidence: these are all part of the story, and all in a big way.

The Lost Update: How to tell the story

I have promised myself never to see the film Schindler's List again.

This is not a statement on Steven Speilberg's amazing interpretation of Thomas Keanelly's rather dry – though ultimately interesting – tome.

It is not a statement on the girl in the red sweater – the only piece of color in the film.

I saw the film twice in the theater. Once was with a group of fellow Jewish high school students. We sat, immobile, in the theater after the movie, until theater personnel told us we had to leave so they could begin letting in the crowd for the next showing.

The second time was with my Irish Catholic friend B—. We were very close in high school, I was one of the very few Jewish friends he had, and it was important to him to have me along for the experience, for some cultural reference, history, conversation.

I broke down crying at the same point in both showings: when Oskar Schindler falls against his car, crying, "If I could only have saved one more."

I've read lots of books, seen lots of movies, about the Holocaust. The only two other works I've exposed myself to multiple times are the film Life is Beautiful, which I've seen twice, and Elie Wiesel's book Night, which I've read three times (once for a class).

The point is, by now, more than 60 years after the end of World War II, hundreds upon hundreds of books have been written; dozens upon dozens of films have been made; thousands upon thousands of stories have been told.

All the stories are remarkable. The individual stories of survival, the individual remembrances. All are powerful.

So how do we tell a story about the Holocaust, and make it stand out? Have we reached a saturation point? Is it possible?

Daniel Mendelsohn does address this question, although it is not his question, in The Lost.

And there's no real answer. The answer has to be, you tell your story, and hope people find it interesting.

And so that's what Mendelsohn does.

For more posts about The Lost, click here.

Update: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn

A lot happens in 100 pages.

As Mendelsohn progresses with his story, the language becomes first more flowery, then more friendly – he's not forcing the words anymore, he's telling a story (as opposed to setting it up).

The turning point, actually, is Mendelsohn's description of his grandfather's suicide. The story is told with admiration, and when you get done reading it, you go back and re-read it, because you're unclear on what you just read. You think you read it, then suddenly you're not sure. When you get done, it's a "holy crap!" moment.

The thing that's most striking about this is the amount of work Mendelsohn puts into this book. He flies across continents. He spends hours on the phone with strangers. He builds relationships with the parents of friends and co-workers. He learns languages.

This is not, "hey, I've got an interesting idea, I think I'll write a book."

It's not, "I think I'll try doing such-and-such and write about my experience."

This is, "I have to do this, and I will pass along the interesting bits."

Along the way, Mendelsohn is writing his own Midrash – Bible commentary. He names parts of his book after parshot – portions of the Torah (the five Books of Moses) read weekly.

The Lost is not something read, it's something experienced.

There will be an update in the not-too-distant future.

For all entries on Mendelsohn's book, click here.

What we're reading: The Lost by Daniel Mendelsohn

This is going to be a long, slow read, but we'll check in with it occasionally, because it's interesting.

The Lost is Daniel Mendelsohn's search for a branch of his family that was killed during the Holocaust. He's heard stories about so many members of his family, has inquired in letters to older relatives about cousins and great-aunts and so many others.

But his Uncle Shmiel, his wife and his four daughters, decided, after emigrating to the U.S. for a time, to return to Eastern Europe, where they were subsequently killed by the Nazis.

People don't really talk about Shmiel and his family.

Due primarily to the layout of the book (small text, tiny margins) and the language (fairly formal – something you might expect from someone who regularly writes for the New York Times Book Review – which is just not something I typically read for leisure), I'm making very slow progress on it, and am reading other books simultaneously.

But like I said, it's an interesting book. I've made a note to go back and read Genesis, to try to see the people as people, rather than upright, uber-holy Biblical characters.

More on the book next week.

What we're reading, what we're not reading

What we are reading: 52 Pickup by Elmore Leonard

Yeah, yeah, I know. I've finished books three of the last four days. Yes, I'm still going out and being social. I'm just picking good books. Mostly.

Elmore Leonard, in combination with Charles Bukowski, has me wondering if writers give characters all their bad habits, or if they just want to live vicariously through their characters.

Leonard's protagonist, Henry Mitchell, drinks too much, smokes too much, shot down two allied planes during World War II (and got off because he said they fired on him), and runs his own manufacturing company.

He also single-handedly busts up an extortion ring that was trying to get him for $105,000 after he cheated on his wife.

Henry Mitchell is basically superman in a gray suit.

52 Pickup is a wild ride. I'm just not going to get too into it because, well, you should be reading Leonard's work. At this point, I've blown through at least a half dozen of his books, and all are quick, enjoyable reads.

What we're not reading: I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

Tucker Max describes himself as an asshole. Specifically, he's a drunken, womanizing asshole, who also, through most of the episodes in the book, is a law student at Duke. So they were training him to be an entirely different kind of asshole.

I was assured by a clerk at a reputable shop that I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell is a fantastically funny read. She even called me, "my friend," in making her recommendation. That's usually a good sign.

I got through three chapters. There's not enough frat boy in me for those three chapters to be funny. At all. There are also enough writing errors to make me think that thanking his editor in the acknowledgments is just Max being an asshole again.

If you're entirely unlike me – that is, frequently truant punctuation doesn't bother you and you find waking up in your car without your pants and still over the legal blood alcohol content level somewhere between endearing and admirable – you'll probably like this book. I have a copy here with your name on it.

What we're reading: The True Believer by Eric Hoffer

When I was writing for a newspaper, I met a man who, in trying to memorize a complicated mathematical proof of his own concoction, wrote his equation on the inside of a paper bag, and walked around his attic apartment with the paper bag on his head for four days until he had it down pat.

He is what we call a wingnut. This is not the medical term. Nor is it, I imagine, the politically correct one.

I think of wingnuttery as working on a V-shaped spectrum. My paper-bag-wearing friend, strange but benign, might be the bottom point of the V. As we head up the right side, we get political wingnuts like George W. Bush and, further up, Joseph Stalin. Along the left side, we get pontificating wingnuts like Eric Hoffer and, further up, Noam Chomsky.

And pretty much anyone who blogs because they feel like they have something interesting to say. Hi, pot. Meet kettle. Anywho...

The story on Hoffer goes like this. When he was seven, his mom fell while carrying him downstairs, and young Eric went blind.

When he turned 15, his eyesight magically reappeared, and he began reading as much as he could as fast as he could, lest his eyesight go away again.

Hoffer never graduated high school, but he read. A lot.

His first and best-known book, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements came out in 1951, when the world was reeling from World War II, Hitler, Stalin and the vague beginnings of the Cold War.

The True Believer reads like a how-to guide for any pretentious human who wishes to start and maintain a revolution, then oversee the final result when it's done being a revolution.

With the perspective of 50-plus years since the book's publication, the guide still holds up. To run a revolution, you need people who can write, people who can convince (oratorically and forcefully) and people who can organize.

To get people on board with your revolution, make sure the past looks glorious and the present looks bleak (but not desperate – people who spend their days hunting for scraps of food aren't going to get behind a cause). Also, people who are bored make great revolutionaries.

To keep people on board after you've reached critical mass, make sure they don't think too much.

To me, the most striking point makes a lot of sense: Someone prone to revolution will get behind pretty much any revolution; it doesn't matter what the cause is.

The book is going to appeal to a narrow cross-section of people: Those with a large vocabulary (words like religiofication and renascence pop up every other paragraph) who don't mind specious citations (the one source I was interested in exploring was in Section 8; when I got to the footnote, it told me to refer to Section 111 – not only is he using the current work as the source, he's using something 100 pages after what you're reading as the source).

What we're reading: Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti

I've learned a lot from Jessica Valenti over the past few years. Apart from my anonymously blogging friend Sassy Pants and my simply amazing friend Catherine Orland (and, of course, my mother, who had a hell of a head start on these ladies – though she is also amazing), I've learned more about human interaction from Valenti than most other people.

Valenti is one of the founding editors of the blog Feministing. (She wins points straightaway for turning a noun into a verb.) Her blog deals primarily with feminist issues, and it becomes painfully evident right away that there's no such thing as an issue that belongs to a single -ist.

Queer issues, class and poverty issues, racial issues, immigration, employment, religion, these are all feminist issues. They're also human issues. Funny how that works.

This is the most important thing I've learned from Valenti: I am a feminist.

I've given away my copy, but somewhere in or on Full Frontal Feminism, it says, "You're a feminist, I swear!"

And she's right. Pretty much everything in the book falls under the category of "common sense." You can't tell kids that condoms cause cancer then be shocked when they go off and have sex without condoms. You can't allow pharmacists to withhold emergency contraception and then be shocked when abortion rates rise.

It's not brain surgery. And the masses aren't stupid.

The one thing I can say I didn't (a) enjoy and (b) learn from in FFF is the language. Valenti has clearly aimed this book at people younger than me, and she uses a lexicon you're more likely to hear on high school and college campuses. Read: She has a potty typewriter. I'm no prude when it comes to language (really, sit with me for a meal – or worse, watch a football game with me), but when it comes to making a point, I'm strictly in the Kurt Vonnegut camp: every curse word is just another reason for someone not to listen to you.

The Stranger: Just one thing, Dude.
The Dude: Oh yeah, what's that?
The Stranger: Do you have to use so many cuss words?
The Dude: What the fuck are you talking about?
The Stranger: All right, Dude. Have it your way.

But there's no other reason I can name not to read Valenti's book. Especially with an election coming up. And while you're at it, make sure you're reading Feminsting at least twice a week (it's updated several times daily during the week, but I know you folks and daily commitment).

What we're reading: The Joke's Over by Ralph Steadman

In February of 2005, Hunter Stocton Thompson put one of his many guns in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

We knew the fucker was gonna go on his own terms.

The book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is probably the most famous collaboration between the journalist Thompson and the artist Ralph Steadman. They first met covering the Kentucky Derby, Thompson a Kentucky bourbon that hadn't had enough time to mellow and Steadman a political and kind-but-corruptible Brit.

The partnership continued for about 35 years, through books and articles, through marriages, divorces, children, arguments, lawsuits, and more drugs and booze than two men should reasonably ingest (most of it Thompson, by the way).

The Joke's Over is Steadman's memoir of the pair's partnership.

It ain't pretty.

Not that this will surprise you, but Thompson was an exceedingly difficult man to work with. Difficult enough that Steadman is much stronger than I to have stuck it out for so many years.

For better or worse, Steadman is too gentlemanly to really let loose. He leaves Thompson's family and ghost with his dignity, and probably does the same for many of the other people who appear in the book.

But if you're like me, you'll want to read this book.

What Thompson taught the world I inhabit – that of journalism – is that a story doesn't stop being a story when you become a part of it. And if you were part of a story, you're important to the story – you shouldn't leave out your involvement and write a drier piece.

In other words, the world does not operate independently of those in it, and those in it are probably the ones best qualified to write about it.

Steadman's pen is so much more incisive than anything a camera ever did. His contribution to Thompson's world cannot be overlooked.

And that's what makes this book so interesting.

I would definitely recommend reading Fear and Loathing before reading this book. You could pull up some of the old Rolling Stone pieces the two did together, but I'm not sure they would give you enough of a precursor, especially given the icon the book has become.

What we're reading: Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander

Shalom Auslander grew up in an ultra-orthodox Jewish community. These are the guys you see with the black hats, the black overcoats, the long beards and the sidecurls, with their wives and full litters of children in tow.

It's a mitzvah – a commandment – to procreate.

Auslander grew up in a world where men and women prayed separately, God was vengeful, and masturbation was absolutely, positively forbidden.

Also, because his first name, which translates to peace in English, is one of the names for God, he was not allowed to put his full name on tests, essays or anything else growing up. If he did, the test was placed immediately in a box with lots of other pieces of paper with God's name on them.

The box would then be given a proper burial. Because if you threw away a piece of paper with God's name on it, well, watch out.

Growing up, Auslander saw a great disconnect between what he learned in school and at home, and what he saw in the world outside.

Boys holding hands with girls. Wonderful magazines full of pictures of women wearing nothing. Slim Jims. Cheese-flavored Slim Jims.

I've never bought the idea of a vengeful God. Nor have I bought the idea of a humorless God. (As Kevin Smith says in the foreword to Dogma, "consider the platypus.")

In order for me to accept God, I have to think we can speak on the same level occasionally. Kind of like the God in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, who positively hates when people grovel.

How much, "oh, God, you are so great!" can one deity take before realizing people are blowing smoke up God's ass?

Anyway, Auslander agrees, but his upbringing is such that he's just not sure enough. He writes funny stories about God, and just when he has almost a full book of short stories written, he deletes the entire file off his hard drive, lest someone he know dies.

Because God would kill his wife, his son, his editor, his neighbor, whomever, just to torture Auslander.

When God lets Auslander's Rangers make it to the Stanley Cup finals and then presents Auslander with an opportunity to go to the game, it turns out it's on the Sabbath. So he and his wife trudge from their New Jersey home into Manhattan on foot, because God won't let them drive on the Sabbath.

When the Rangers lose the game, Auslander goes over to buy a non-kosher hot dog from a vendor across the way. When he pays for the dog with a $5 bill, his wife glares at him.

"You carried money on the Sabbath? That's why they lost!"

You get the idea. Auslander is funny, open, and better yet, he's a great conversational writer. The book is probably funnier if you're Jewish or have some knowledge of the community. And be aware that there is plenty of masturbation. Enough for me to have mentioned it twice in this post.

You've been warned.

What we're reading: The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs

A.J. Jacobs is jealous of his father.

His dad has a handful of degrees, twenty-something books to his name, and a schmoozer's ability to socialize.

A.J. is a germophobe, he's not particularly socially adept, and, let's face it, he's a giant nerd.

His dad one time set out to read the entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. He didn't get through it.

So A.J. decided he was going to.

And he did.

The Know-It-All details the younger Jacobs' roughly year-long journey through 44 million words over 33,000 pages of tiny type. He picks out interesting items and weaves in anecdotes from his life – his irritatingly intelligent brother-in-law, he and his wife's troubles trying to have a baby, his appearance on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?

Jacobs finds running themes – fetishes, famous people who marry their cousins, beheadings – and finds a disturbing number of entries that intersect his life at any given time.

The book is occasionally funny, frequently cheesy, and a great read that will teach you a lot of things you never knew you wanted to know. And also a lot of things you wish you didn't.

Also, it includes this quote from Horace Mann – twice – so be sure to read the book.

"Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity."