Washington Post Book Reviews
For You
Wednesday August 11, 2010
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TALKING TO GIRLS ABOUT DURAN DURAN: One Young Man's Quest for True Love and a Cooler Haircut
Rob Sheffield
Dutton
ISBN 978 0 525 95156 8
274 pages
$25.95
Reviewed by Jen Chaney
Rob Sheffield learned everything he needed to know about life from his pop music collection. The journalist and author made that clear in his bittersweet "Love is a Mix Tape," the 2007 memoir in which he viewed the loss of his first wife through the poignant prism of songs by Pavement and Big Star. And he makes it clear again in his latest mash-up of remembrances and rock criticism: "Talking to Girls About Duran Duran," a breezy ode to growing up in the '80s that's fun to read but less focused than the earlier book.
Where "Mix Tape" concentrated on a single love story, "Talking to Girls" fills 200-plus pages with personal essays -- each pegged to a different pop song -- that wax nostalgic about everything from Sheffield's former schoolteachers to John Hughes movies to the ludicrousness of the cassingle. It's a walk down a very specific memory lane, one paved by Generation X.
During that walk, Sheffield doesn't always successfully tie together his flashback with a pop chart-topper; a chapter about his summer gig as a garbage collector, dubbed "Total Eclipse of the Heart," barely refers to the Bonnie Tyler track of that name. Yet in other places, Sheffield's prose shimmers with nostalgia. Recalling his soundtrack to another summer job, one that involved peddling frozen treats, he writes, "Every time Prince strummed that cathedral-sized opening guitar chord of 'Purple Rain,' it felt like the ice cream truck was a spaceship lifting off to bring Creamsicles to distant constellations." Moments like that, and there are just enough of them here, will make Sheffield's fellow early MTV worshippers happy to connect with such a delightfully wistful, New Wave kindred spirit.
Jen Chaney can be reached at chaneyj(at symbol)washpost.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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CORDUROY MANSIONS
Alexander McCall Smith
Pantheon
ISBN 978 0 307 37908 5
368 pages
$24.95
Reviewed by Eugenia Zukerman
The prolific author of four popular series, including "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency," Alexander McCall Smith seems to be exploring new genres. He recently published a stand-alone novel, "La's Orchestra Saves the World," about a World War II romance with a musical background. Now, with "Corduroy Mansions," set in contemporary London, he cooks up a delicious story that seems part Restoration comedy and part Victorian novel, tossed with a dash of mystery and a dollop of satire.
"Corduroy Mansions" is like the cloth of its title -- comfortable, easy, homey. Illustrated whimsically by Iain McIntosh, these short chapters or vignettes evoke the serial magazine writing of another era. Character names, too, seem to be a homage to British writers of the past -- Swift, Fielding, Dickens -- who were fond of descriptive appellations such as Roger Thwackum, the nasty tutor in "Tom Jones." In "Corduroy Mansions," an "oleaginous MP" is named Oedipus Snark; his putative girlfriend is Barbara Ragg; there's a writer named Errol Greatorex; and a neighbor, Miss Oiseau, who has "a thin, reedy voice."
The story begins with William Edward French, a widower, 51, self-described as "average height, very slightly overweight ... no distinguishing features. Not dangerous, but approach with caution." A wine dealer, William lives in Corduroy Mansions with Eddie, the adult slacker son he dearly wishes to offload. Marcia, a caterer, has an unrequited taste for William and therefore also wishes to remove Eddie from the scene. She has a key to William's flat and tries to entice him with her cooking. Sometimes he comes home to discover "a plate of only-the-tiniest-bit-soggy chicken vol-au-vents, or cocktail sausages impaled on little sticks, like pupae in a butterfly collection."
Filled with charming eccentrics, "Corduroy Mansions" is like a small 18th-century village with big 21st-century angst and insecurities. Thrown into this mix are four young women who share a flat on the floor below William, along with Basil Wickramsinghe, an accountant, and assorted non-residents. There's also a vegetarian dog, Freddie de la Hay, a former "sniffer dog at Heathrow Airport," who is brought in by William to scare off his canine-phobic son. Berthea Snark, Oedipus' psychoanalyst mother, who hates her son ("I've been visited by dreams in which I have done something terrible to him"), features importantly, as does her brother, the ditzy Terence Moongrove.
The discovery of a possibly stolen Poussin painting provides a McGuffin, as does a manuscript written by a yeti (aka the abominable snowman). McCall Smith, a master of weaving the many strands of his complex stories together, does so here with supreme virtuosity. He satirizes the manners and mores of his characters and their society but, as always, remains deeply affectionate toward his flawed cast. And so, Dear Reader, will you.
Eugenia Zukerman is a flutist, the author of four books, artistic director of the Vail Valley Music Festival and founder of ClassicalGenie.com.
Copyright 2010 Washington Post Writers Group
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