Best Books of (My) Year 2013

After Friday's Concerts of the Year, now it's time to follow with the books. Here are my favourite 10 reads of 2013. As you will see a year with plenty of literature about music, the direct (and welcomed) consequence of being the responsible of this section at Indienauta. Hope you like it!

10. Sideral- Héctor Castells
Not long ago, Barcelona had a very special Peter Pan. A guy with the looks of David Bowie (Stardust era), an ego as big as his height or his emotional fragility, and a tremendous passion for music. His name was Aleix Vergés, aka dj Sideral, a celebrity of the night in the city. But he became more than that. Icon of a generation betrayed by the promise of a shiny Olimpic summer that quickly showed its ugly face of corruption, speculation and meaningless design. Missing link of Sónar, Primavera Sound, Nitsa, Apolo. Source of inspiration (and frustration) for many. An a fading star. This is his biography, an incandescent book.

9. 200 Discos de Bolsillo- Marcos Gendre
Lists I have done, read and followed many. Music guides too. But books of these kind have never followed me for more than three months, crossed the Atlantic and became the soundtrack of a one-in-a-lifetime experience. And in another personal note, it has been the reason to forge a friendship. Written with the solely purpose of vindicating the best music that was created on the EP format during a very specific period (1997-1991), in all the sub-genres that conform the alternative scene, here there's something for everyone: punk, post-punk, C86, Manchester, Americana, dream pop, hardcore, post-hardcore. And always with the passionate prose of Marcos Gendre. A music feast.
 
8. Post Office- Charles Bukowski
A poignant "I hate my job" tale, in the form of Chinaski's twelve years of slavery (to the wage, as the 99% of us are) at the U.S. Postal Service. Here's the quintessential Bukowski: grim, booze, horses, women. But also something else. An "I need to do something with my life" story, where Chinaski constantly seeks company, fearing being alone, plus an intriguing sadness on his perspective on relations, and a fight against routine, boredom, silliness. An open claim to say "enough", looking towards starting a new chapter on his life, leaving behind jobs that kills something inside of us.

7. Memorias Sónicas. Historias en Siete Pulgadas- Various Authors
This is a gift, a treasure for everyone who doesn't understand life without music. 23 powerful stories written by a true all-star cast of the Spanish indie scene: some are hauntingly beautiful, some are hilarious, other curious, a few utterly compelling, and always very close for anyone that has been "touched" by a record, a song or an artist. A personal and intimate music voyage that every writer/artist shares with the reader. A little treasure.

6. Mooch- Dan Fante
Welcome to the black hole again. To the realm of desperation, where the tale of surveillance this time has a little light at the end of a tortuous, exhausting tunnel. Written on the trademark "take no-prisoners" prose of Dan Fante you'll probably get hurt while reading it, but persevere. There’s a change, an opportunity for Bruno, who has transformed from the "Chump Change" coward who preferred self-destruction instead of confronting its fears into someone brave enough to try living. Maybe there's a future after all.

5. Erasure: A Novel- Percival Everett
Finally I found it: post-modern vitriol. Devastating read, audacious and risky in its structure, allusive and bleak in his prose, sardonic and angry in what it says. Merciless in the portray of hypocrisy in our society (cultural world beware) but also able to include a moving look to a son trying to deal with the aging of her mother. Are you black enough? Monk's struggle to answer this question the way the Academia and the politically correct demand will come with a vengeance, in an incredible box of surprises. A fierce statement, a peculiar comedy that won't make you laugh but think instead, a knock-out read.

4. Black Postcards- Dean WarehamA surprisingly honest memoir of a musician's life. Dean Wareham explains everything about Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean and Britta, his cult status. But also what an artist real life is, with bills to pay and several domestic issues. No heroics, no drama, just the personal recount of a human being that happens to go up on a stage from time to time to plug a guitar and play for a living. If you were looking for yet another glamorous take on fame, drugs and rock'n'roll, look somewhere else. But if you prefer a real slice of life, and the revelation of what music industry is for musicians without private jets, millions spent on advertising and groupies in everyone corner, don't miss "Black Postcards".

3. Pistol. The Life of Pete Maravich- Mark Kriegel
Pete "Pistol" Maravich, an American icon and, foremost, a unique ballplayer that made that elevated that sport to unparalleled levels of spectacle with his never-ending talents deserved a biography like this one. The built of a legend that shaped a sport, but also a personal nightmare where playing the ball, always Pete's shelter, turned also to be his curse. Zero hagiography, on a highly documented work, fuelled with the opinions of countless who were there, plus a will to make no prisoners, but tell a story that is shocking, powerful and touching enough by itself. A tale of obsession and frustration, with basketball being the joy and ruin of the Maravich's family. The Elvis of basketball.

2. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood- Peter Biskind 
This book is a mind-blowing encyclopedia of the so-called "New Hollywood" and the people behind it. But is much more than the most detailed account on some of the best, most striking films ever made, the work of directors, actors and filming crew. This is also a frightening "human monsters parade". A devastating tale of young and ambitious filmmakers, Scorsese, Coppola, Robert Altman, Hal Ashby, William Friedkin, Roman Polanski or Peter Bogdanovich, willing to inject a revolutionary spirit to a lifeless, unsubstantial industry, but transforming their quest into a dangerous wild ride of people living out of control, letting horrible egos, greed and megalomania rule those times. This is not a celebratory book. Is a fascinating, overwhelming work on the worst of mankind.

1. Kerouac and the Beat Generation- Jean-François Duval
Not another chronicle of the times and lives of the Beats, but instead, a collection of in-depth interviews to the remaining "stars" of those times, unveiling a vivid picture, extremely puzzling, of the so-called generation. Incredibly engaging, the different personalities approached conform a multi-directional look to the Beats, particularly his most famous member: Jack Kerouac. As a fan and well documented investigator, Duval knows what the questions should be, but the answers he got from Allen Ginsberg, Carolyn Cassady, Joyce Johnson, Anne Waldman, Timothy Leary and Ken Kesey reveal a different story of the one we knew. Around the movement (if there's was one) a truth was built: America needed the Beats to offer a definition of the changes the country was going through. I won't spoil it to you. Please read it.

Want to check last year's books list? Just click here
And 2011's? Check here

"Mooch", Appetite for (Self)-Destruction

Mooch- Dan Fante

It's my third "encounter" with Dan Fante, so I can't say I didn't know what to expect. Maybe it's the fact I read Milan Kundera's utterly forgettable "Laughable Loves" before and the contrast was so extreme. In what regards to tone, theme and style, "Mooch" is familiar territory and there's little to be surprised... but it's so simple: reading Dan Fante is such a blast!

It's the black hole again. The kamikaze, suicidal tendencies. The feeling of supreme desperation and the need to hold on something too tight... you already lost it. Fante doesn't write, he punches the reader, he beats you and leaves you breathless, wondering for some relief, some little mercy and hope for his character Bruno Dante (too real alter-ego), and make no mistake, also for you, as you’ll find yourself scared to turn the page and find there's more real horror awaiting you.

In “Mooch” though, it seems there's a little light at the end of the long and dark-crazy tunnel. First there's a salesman job at Orbit Computer Supplies, nothing remotely similar to a position you would dream of, but still a place to get stable and earn some money. Fante depicts the job with a medical precision, but don’t think on Bukowski here, this is not “Post Office”. Orbit is frightening, his work colleagues are frightening and the twelve-step program is always there. But for a while, Bruno really seems he could be capable to succeed. He's sober, he's good at it, and he falls in love. Well, kind of. Is that love? Another insane addiction? Masochism? Or just another way to push him towards self-destruction? Jimmi is perennial attraction and also the road to perdition. Bruno flirts with disaster. Then he lets the disaster come in. And the gates of hell are wide open again.

As it happened with “Chump Change” or “Fante: A Family’s legacy of…” the terrible, ill-fated turns into a surveillance tale. It doesn’t have a redeeming quality this time, because is Bruno who is finally trying to get in control of his life, there’s a change, tortuous and full of struggles, but a change. The world “built” around him is shaky and explosive, and, as the reader can expect, fails him. Nevertheless, Bruno will probably manage. The "Chump Change" coward who preferred self-destruction instead of confronting its fears is now gone, replaced by someone brave enough to try living. I’m very dubious to call it a positive, or just a hopeful ending, but at least “Mooch” leaves you, at least wanting to believe, a future could exist for Dante.

As the story, Dan Fante’s prose take no prisoners. You are in, or you are out. It’s straightforward, rough, crystal clear and powerful. If you read Fante, you’ll be there, right in the middle of a suffocating L.A., and you probably get hurt. Like his father John Fante (I see the reasons of “Mooch” being compared with “Ask the Dust”) his prose will grab you as very few writers can. I strongly recommend you to read Dan Fante. Dare you to read him.

SCORE: 7,5/10

"Post Office", working-class Bukowski

Post Office- Charles Bukowski

A warning: don't read this if you are struggling with your job. Although it could help you to have the g_ _ _  to call it a day, to put it nicely.

"It began as a mistake", the novel begins. A mistake that went on for more than twelve years, on which Charles Bukowski, through the adventures of his alter-ego Henry Chinaski, shows how he became a slave to the wage, like the 99% of us (we all also know who the vile and corrupted remaining 1% are, but that should go on another post), at the U.S. Postal Service.

Sure, If you have read Bukowski previously, you'll find little to be surprised here. There's booze, horses, women and the grim, raw and let's face it, quite funny prose that is so quintessential of this writer. But besides the (always highly recommendable) Hank-by-numbers, "Post Office" offers something else, something more. A deformed, close to the grotesque if you want, but also a very clear mirror in which the majority of us can reflect his/her image.

Because this novel is truly a treaty, written in Bukowski's unique "knockout style", of how jobs ruins and finally ends killing something inside of us. Chinaski is defeated by routine, by boredom, by plain stupidity, by soul-killing workplaces and mind-numbing strategies created just for the sake of having a higher rate on efficiency while decreasing his level of self-stem. Does it sound familiar to you? I bet it does.

At the same time, though, some people need a daily work not to throw himself/herself from a window, or starts a life of self-destruction. It's a contradiction wonderfully portrayed on "Post Office", being an unsuspected deep analysis of the most mundane, zero glamour, life miseries. It's a poignant "I hate my job" tale, but also a "I need to do something with my life" story, one on which Chinaski constantly seeks company (this book is not really about sex, but about not being alone, there's an intriguing sadness on his perspective on relations here) as much as he needs booze. And despite Chinaski is the perfect example of the anti-hero, in "Post Office" he wins. He says "that's enough", looking towards starting a new chapter on his life.

Like John and Dan Fante (add Carver, Wolff and to some extent Richard Yates), Bukowski is able to say a lot of things to readers without what it seems that much (on the surface). He is just worried of telling the truth (of course, his truth). There's no point in mannerisms, affectations or sentimentalism, because he didn't write to impress you. He wrote about what he cared and what he knew best than anyone else, his life. And he was just interested in telling it like it was. All I can say is thank you Hank.

SCORE: 7,25/10

Best Books of (My) Year 2012

December has arrived. So, it's time to begin with the best-of-the-year-lists. Songs, albums, concerts, movies will follow, but I'll start with the books today. Here are my favourite 10 reads of this 2012. What a great year of literature (and music) this has been. Hope you like it!

10. Hollywood- Charles Bukowksi
The connection with the "Fantes" (John & Dan) made me come back to Bukowski. What a refreshing re-encounter this proved to be. Focused, fast-paced and amusing, his tale about the miracle that was that "Barfly" became a movie, might be, in my opinion, his best work alongside "Ham On Rye". Crazy, hilarious situations to describe the difficulties of mixing literature with cinema, portraying an industry with little glamour and much to be scared about, full of the strangest people in front of which a mature Hank can only laugh about. You'll do too.

9. Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving- Dan Fante
As the prose of both writers, this Fante's memoirs will puzzle you, grab you and shake you as few literature can do. Monstrous, vitriolic reality bites, on which the heroes doesn't look too nice. A double life of self-destruction, one by selling himself, the other by trying to kill himself, that amazingly, were rescued by literature. It hurts, but it also redeems in its own, unique way.
 
8. I Was Bono's Doppelgänger- Neil McCormick
Watch the movie, but foremost, don't miss the book. Neil McCormick's biography is the story of a recurrent struggle towards an obsession: being a rock star. The failures of his bands, the Dublin and London music scenes, a pretty ugly portray of the music industry merge beautifully with hilarious situations, self-deprecating humour... always with increasing and (amusingly) excruciating shadow of U2. Fun, revealing and a must for the Irish band fans.

7. When the Nines Roll Over and Other Stories- David Benioff
The "emotional point of no return" is a recurrent, central element on literature, but there are few writers who are capable of capturing, dissecting that existential turmoil and bring it to us, readers, in the form of hilarious situations or devastating dramas. Whether the stories are, on the surface, mundane, or on the contrary, thrilling, adventurous, very peculiar, feelings and behaviours of the main characters are very recognisable. Modern adult life, in all its forms. 

6. Dreams from Bunker Hill- John Fante
A masterful writer in one of his finest hours? Indeed folks, this is the great John Fante giving us another dose of the impulsive and passionate alter ego Arturo Bandini, but this time in the form of a joyful satire of Hollywood, where our character involves himself on a never-ending collection of very fun disasters. Add an impossible love story. Add an Italian wrestler. Add the incomparably vital prose of Fante. And add the spectacular love letter to literature that is chapter nine. Precious read.

5. The Gonzo Writer- Hunter S.Thompson
The letters of one of my most beloved literary heroes? Reading was mandatory for me. But I wasn't really expecting such an absorbing reading. A person creating a character of himself while he struggles to make a living as journalist and writer, a creator of a literary style (more consciously than I thought), a father and a husband, and a politically committed person. Bitterness, wild fun, craziness, all together in a vast compendium of correspondency. This book would be topping the list, but it rates lower because Anagrama published just an anthology, a selection from the originals "The Proud Highway" and "Fear and Loathing in America". And that's is not enough for a real Hunter's fan.

4. Knockemstiff- Donald Ray Pollock
Hell on Earth could be in Ohio, specifically in this rural black hole that allows no redemption or mercy. A novel of a very specific place and a time on its own that could be anywhere. "Knockemstiff" is anywhere where there's no future, because there's zero hope for the present. Scary? It is. There are no lessons here, just the cruel and raw "reality". A mind-blowing and painful collection of stories. Read it with care.

3. A Thousand Violins- Kiko Amat
Novel? Biography? Compilation of essays? And much more. It is one of the most engaging love letters music has ever received. If your passion/obsession is music, this book is for you. This is an emotional and personal work, because that's what music is made of and produces on us, and because Amat deconstructs part of his life through songs and groups. So, even if your tastes in music are not very similar to the author's, it will connect with you. A very special one.

2. Everyone Loves You When You're Dead- Neil Strauss
More books about music topping the list. This time with an incredible, gigantic collection of interview snippets with some of the most well-known celebrities on music. Strauss makes art of every interview. "Everyone Loves You..." is not a full of surreal conversations, unbelievable situations, unexpected adventures or grotesque, absurd moments he witnesses or takes part on. Is also an outstanding task on deconstructing the minds of celebrities, showing, with very few exceptions, an amount of traumas, inner conflicts and difficulties of dealing with fame. Must-read for anyone, not just music lovers.

1. Company K- William March
And our number one is a masterpiece about the horror of war, that despite being somewhat neglected when it was originally published, and being written after WWI feels completely modern and fresh. That's because "Company K" is a triumph both in style and content, offering a devastating semi-fictionalized account of a military unit's experiences. Each chapter is a story on its own, very brief snippets of a soldier's life. And together they are the most mesmerizing account of what means being at war.

Want to check last year's books list? Just click here

"Hollywood", Bukowski at the movies

Hollywood- Charles Bukowski

As previously announced, my next literary stop was going to be, thanks to John and Dan Fante, another taste of the peculiar talents of enfant terrible Charles Bukowski. And I chose a very singular book to do so, "Hollywood", one of his latest works, and that aside from a novel could also be categorized as the "screenplay's cut" of Charles Bukowski.

Under the well-known alter ego of Henry Chinaski, Bukowski transforms his thoughts and views about the filmmaking process of "Barfly", directed by Barbet Schroeder in late 80's, with a script written by him, on a novel. On a Chinaski novel. But this is not the chaotic and dark (frequently depressive), wicked and wild Chinaski. He's still a sardonic, drunken and cynical character, who aside from drinking and writing spends his time (and money) at the horse races. But he has also grown-up, and in this occasion behaves more like a humorous witness of all the crazy situations and weird people involved in the making of the film. The result is a lighter and funnier book, probably without the substance and vitriol of his trademark straight prose, but full of rewarding moments and an excellent, very engaging rhythm. It will grab you, guaranteed.

Throughout a collection of anecdotes and surreal situations, Bukowski displays an accurately funny dissection of that parallel world known as "Hollywood". He once defined "Hollywood" as a novel of "outrage" in an interview. ''I guess I never believed Hollywood - I heard it's a horrible place - but when I went there, I found out how really horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible it was, black and cutthroat". There's a bit for everyone, indeed. Actors, directors, producers, journalists, distributors. Its a complete monsters parade, full of egos, economic interests, delusions of grandeur. Bukowski hides some names, but others are revealed without much contemplations. The likes of Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Sean Penn, and "Barfly" starring actors Faye Dunaway and Mickey Rourke are portrayed with the merciless tongue & pen of Chinaski. There's only one exception, aside from Chinaski's wife: Jon Pinchot, alter ego of Barbet Schroeder. There's even an evident tenderness on the way the writer narrates his incredible sacrifices and efforts to make the film go along.

Together with Pinchot, probably the only honest man on "Hollywood", there's another moment on the book where Chinaski lets his guard off: when attending various scenes of the filming and gets a bit jealous, at the same time touched, by the actors that are representing his own story. It's a wonderful account, without affectations, of the past, his youth, the writer has left behind.

More linear, with a clear and actual plot for what's usual with Bukowski, "Hollywood" is a testimony of what a sort of miracle was that "Barfly" became a movie, considering all the unbelievable situations the people involved on the film had to suffer, but foremost is a very amusing, fast-paced and engaging novel of literature and its hard relation with cinema, about an industry with little glamour and much to be scared about, and the weird (very weird people) that is part of them.

SCORE: 7,5/10

"Fante", reality bites of literature and alcohol

Fante: A Family's Legacy of Writing, Drinking and Surviving
Dan Fante

I have no idea why I am crazy and angry and edged-out most of the time and why alcohol and painkiller pills and Xanax-type stuff are the only things that help to keep me remotely calm. I have no idea why I experience life as pointless and screwed and I know that most people don't pour a cup of bourbon into their milk and oatmeal in the morning. That's just how it is. 

Dan Fante, "86'd"

Four sentences to define a life of self-destruction that, surprisingly, becomes also a story of surveillance and passion for literature. Dan Fante's biography is an unusual one, because mixes his own, suicidal life, with the story of his ancestors and, in particular his father, the great writer John Fante. The tale is terrible, ill-fated and full of booze, but there's also space for redemption and change.

With that trademark's straightforward way of writing, Fante's memoirs are darker than a black hole. And the parallel lines between father and son are always present. The frustration and bliss, and if you allow me to say it, their self-condemnation, as it was always fate had dictated for them. But the paths taken are very different. John sold himself to Hollywood, so he could pay the bills, form a family that he didn't take much care of, and life comfortably but in anger. A man of his time (40-50s) with a gifted prose that, ironically, only was recognised (Bukowski you are next in line of my readings) when he was approaching his (cruel and suffering) death. On the contrary, Dan never seemed to find his own way, a blistering road to nowhere and incredible suffering, until redemption and literature settled him down.

The fragmented structure, shifting between father and son (biggest part of the book) is hyper-addictive. A number of chapters, paragraphs, sentences, are memorable, deeply affecting (in a shocking or a touching, emotional way) and the tension of a life constantly looking to the horizon from the edge of the cliff is always palpable. You might not like the Fante's as persons after reading their story, but the level of exposure, the absolute lack of pretensions of presenting himself (or his father) as some sort of hero that "came back from the dark side", reveals a gigantic human heart, with all their contradictions, miseries and hunger for living.

I have some minor complaints, though. I would have loved some more chapters devoted to John Fante and his writings, as well as their relation with Hollywood. Also, a bit more on his mother,  Joyce, who is clear plays a pivotal role but is too blurred in the biography in my opinion, would have been necessary. I became a bit exhausted with Dan's recurrent cycles of self-destruction, to be honest, and its hard to me to understand how he finally defeated his addiction. I don't believe in miracles.  

But as I said before, there's no self-pity, victimisation, apologies, excuses or preaching here. So take it or leave it, because that's the way it is. And as everything coming from Fante's (both father and son) prose, I sincerely recommend you to grab it. These are monstrous reality bites, a reality that hurts a lot. But you might even win the fight, if you try.

SCORE: 7,5/ 10

"Chump Change", John & Dan Fante: father to son

Chump Change- Dan Fante

We believe that dying is hard, but dying is not important. What is difficult is to live as everything dies around us.

After making a post about U2 songs that served me as an excuse to go back to some personal favourites from the Irish band, I finished this book. And I can't help thinking how much it reminds me to their tune "Dirty Day" from Zooropa.

"Chump Change" is the first book translated into Spanish of Dan Fante, the son of John Fante, the fantastic American writer, who was completely neglected on his time, long forgotten and surprisingly (thanks to writers like Bukowski who praised his work) recovered and recognized as he deserved only recently. This first book of his son doesn't hide a bit its nature (replacing Fante with Dante): an homage to the lost father, an a gut-wrenching tale of redemption.

Entertainment might be an option for some, but to be called real literature, to me it has to grab you. Literally. I do believe that John Fante would agree with me. And I bet his son does too, 'cause "Chump Change" doesn't need more than a couple of pages to have you diving in the story. From starters, you might want to surface, because what you under the dark waters is freaking scary, but at the same time you know you will keep reading. Even more knowing the story is real.

A big part of the impact of the book resides on how Dan Fante's writes. It could be defined as minimalism, but his prose seems effortless while at the same time is so powerful and clear. Think on his father, or on Bukowski, and you'll be close. Think on the so-called "dirty realism". But on the roughest, merciless version of it. Fante's talent to put into words this monstrous drunk nightmare is mesmerizing. Smell the booze, breath Los Angeles. Or better said, feel his suffocation in L.A.

Yet what makes the book stand-out is the ability of Fante of being compelling despite being so unbelievably raw. "Chump Change" doesn't create an heroic literary alter-ego, but a coward, one that might prefer self-destruction instead of confronting its fears. A very human coward, one that is scared of death, and that is afraid of, and going back to U2's "Dirty Day", "hold onto something so tight/You've already lost it". But time doesn't give second chances. John Dante's time is running out, and Bruno, the son, despite the bitterness, the failure and the disappointment they both shared ("there's no blood thicker than ink"), will have one last opportunity of showing his feelings and start life again. I would only add four more words to this: chapter 17, real emotion. Quoting U2 one last time:

A work that's never done
Father to son

Superb book

SCORE: 8/10