Nicholson Baker
New York: Simon and Schuster, 2009.
Why a plum? A plum, according to the eponymous anthologist Paul Chowder, is a poem that does not rhyme. Chowder himself writes plums–he’s a mid-list plummet–but the anthology he is editing is a collection of rhyming poems. This is only one of the many paradoxes of this hilarious book. Paul Chowder is a rambling, verbose narrator, but he is miserably blocked on his introduction to Only Rhyme. His anthology is of rhyming poems, but his obsession is with meter. He is remarkably self-aware, but in spite of its having cost him his peace of mind, his income and his girlfriend, he cannot overcome his writer’s block and get the introduction to his anthology written. (Also tantalizingly missing from the text are his flying spoon poems, of which he makes mention several times. I’d like to read those flying spoon poems.)
Paul Chowder is a lovable chump, and I marveled at how Baker managed to make me want to spend time with a narrator who would be an absolute horror in person. He did it with humour, irony and a pin-point precision in his description of human folly.
Here he is on the great dread of the passing of time to the blocked writer:
Thursday is the day of fear: On Monday you’re in great shape because you’ve got the whole week. Then Tuesday, still pretty good, still at the beginning more or less. Then Wednesday, and you’re poised, and you can accomplish much if you just apply yourself vigorously and catch up. And then suddenly, you’re driving under that huge tattered banner, with that T and that H and that U and that frightening R and the appalling S—THURSDAY—and you slide down the steep slope toward the clacking shredder blades that wait on Sunday afternoon. Another whole week of your one life. (140)
Chowder’s angst is not limited to his writer’s block. He also feels his whole career as a poet is a fraud. He cannot write rhyming poems himself, and for this his blames his fourth grade teacher, who made the introduction to writing poetry through haiku and free verse.
What did she really mean by “It doesn’t have to rhyme?” Did she mean it could rhyme but it didn’t have to? No. She meant Don’t rhyme. She meant: I am going to manacle your poor pliable brains with freedom. I’m going to insist that you must be free. She wrote “FREE VERSE” on the board.
And I sat there on my chair with the very smooth casters and I thought, What does she mean it doesn’t have to rhyme, because rhyme is poetry. Where did Little Miss Muffet sit? Did she sit on a cushion? Did she sit on a love seat? No, she sat on a tuffet. And if it doesn’t rhyme it’s just guano. “Guano” was one of my favorite words back then—I’d learned it from Tintin.
But I said nothing, like the craven fourth-grader I was. I went ahead and wrote a poem. … It was a terrible poem. But my mother liked it, and it was remarkably easy to write. And that was the beginning of my career. (75)
It is passages like these that had me chortling through the whole book, but where Paul Chowder really captured my heart was when he went to a bookstore to procrastinate:
I think I’m going to go to RiverRun Books and look at the poetry shelves. When I see new books for sale there that I already own, it makes me happy. It makes me feel that there’s part of the world that I really understand. (149)
Oh, Paul. That makes me happy, too.
I have to thank Phaedosia at Book Hearth for reminding me about this book. It’s been on my TBR shelf for ages, and, of course, National Poetry Month is just the right time to knock it off. An amusing, quick read with just enough discussion of poets and poetry to make it feel like you’ve done a bit of work having read it. (Kelly, he even mentions Samuel Daniel!)
I think I could enjoy this, but just looking at my ‘must be read by the end of next week’ shelf makes me feel slightly sick at the moment, so I’m going to have to simply add it to the library list. Do you think when Andrew Marvell wrote about having world enough and time he really was thinking about sex? Or was he complaining about his tbr pile?
Do you know, Annie, I think the answer to that question will very much depend on whether you ask a man or a woman! (On carpe diem: There are several paragraphs in this book about “gather ye rosebuds” being a mistaken transcription, and it should read “your” not “ye” but would be much less memorable without the mistake.)
Oo, this would be good for National Poetry Month. I didn’t think of that! My mother got it for me for Christmas and I’ve been putting off reading it because it looks like it’s going to be such a lovely, fun read, and I want to save it for a day when I really need it. But that’s silly! National Poetry Month! I should seize the day.
Great review! I think I’m going to buy this book. The quotes you pulled made me smile. You’re right, Paul Chowder is a lovable chump. You can’t help but root for him, even as he’s tripping down stairs, cutting his fingers, having awkward encounters with the neighbors. . .but what great thoughts on poetry he has.