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"If the best is for the best then the best can be damned."

Bookshelf one, book two. Josh Ritter is a prolific folk songwriter, but, channeling a different kind of muse, 2011 saw the publication of his first novel, Bright's Passage. Still, his book plays much like his albums; it's an epic tale of all of mankind's most famous tragedies: love, war, faith, history. The only difference between the two, really, is that Bright's Passage comes in the form of 193 pages of text. 

Ritter continues to perform as a storyteller. He melodically weaves together the past and present of returned WWI soldier Henry Bright as he escapes the terrors of the trenches of France, the loss of his wife in childbirth, and the pursuit of his villainous father-in-law and a West Virginia wildfire. At the same time, Henry wrestles with the instructions of a self-proclaimed angel, who has followed him home from Europe, speaks to him in the form of farmhouse animals and declares his newborn son the Future King of Heaven. Bright's Passage journeys through the eternal conflicts men and women wage with each other and their gods.

No one could offer songs to a mixtape for Bright's Passage more fittingly than Ritter himself. It isn't surprising that his catalog almost seems like it was written over the years to provide the Future "Bone of Song" to a story like Henry Bright's. In fact, I often heard the story's soldier singing through Ritter as a surrogate - about the war in "Rattling Locks" ("There ain't nothin' new about the world that I ain't learned from 'a just standin' here in this spot."), about the girl he loved and thought he'd saved in "To The Dogs Or Whoever" ("Deep in the belly of a whale I found her, down with the deep blue jail around her.") and "Girl In The War" ("And I gotta girl in the war, Paul, I know that they can hear me yell. If they can't find a way to help her, they can go to Hell."), and about the search for a savior in "Another New World" ("After all I'd found, in my circles around the world, was there anything left?...I've studied the maps, and if what I am thinking is right, there's another new world...for whoever can break through the ice."). 

This playlist of Ritter songs is a short, simple confection, though not a sweet one. The story of Bright's Passage reads swiftly, but feels like a ramble. Despite its elements and themes, the novel's end does not feel entirely climactic, even as Bright makes the decision to save himself. I hear all of this in this mixtape; I hope you might. I can hear Bright singing, too, "If the best is for the best then the best can be damned."

Soundtrack to a novel: Bright's Passage, Josh Ritter

All songs by Josh Ritter

1. Curtains

2. Wildfires

3. Rattling Locks

4. To The Dogs Or Whoever

5. Best For The Best

6. See How Man Was Made

7. Girl In The War

8. Another New World

9. Bone of Song

10. Edge Of The World

Listen to this mixtape on Spotify

"No one ever says a word about, so much that happens in the world."

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. You see, a thing about me is that I suffer lots of cliches - you know, like, 'the grass is always greener on the other side' (of someone else's bookshelf - mainly, Borders' [pre-extinction] and the library's) and 'my eyes are bigger than my stomach' (or just too slow to keep up with masses of literature put out every minute I've been alive and every minute before). I wonder if Oskar's grandma learned those expressions. I wonder if it's not a coincidence that Jonathan Safran Foer's second novel sat untouched in my office as I've filled multiple bookcases and dresser tops and a Kindle with other unread treasures until I was just right and ready to be cut down at the knees by the terrifying journeys of the Schell family. 

You see, another thing about me is that I live my life in a certain inertia of fear. I know this is not unique to the human condition. "Are you an optimist or a pessimist?" Oskar wears his heavy boots and, while there are no parallels here (as you'll see or already know), I carry my own life's tragedies in rocket-propelled roller skates - desperately trying to fly into the future of my mind's eye to know that everything turns out ok. I never want to lose what (and who) I love. I want to be perfectly, statically happy forever. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is a beautifully funny, beautifully sad reminder that this is impossible. "It's a tragedy that we get to live only one life." As it turns out, rocket skates are heavy boots. "You can't protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness." You tie yourself to your worrying weight about trying to live and not lose. Too many stories are romantic drivel about starting again. Oskar and his mother and grandmother and grandfather all know that in itself is a happy ending. This is the story of the present and future thick and loaded with the effects of the past.

Oskar Schell is a clever vegan-atheist of a little boy who loses his father in the World Trade Center on 9/11. He finds a key in his father's closet and embarks on an epic  scavenger hunt that introduces him to all kinds of survivors (but maybe not thrivers) throughout New York City. Running sideways to Oskar's adventure in holding on  ("It's the tragedy of loving, you can't love anything more than something you miss.") is the story of his father's parents, both survivors of the WWII bombings of Dresden. I don't think I can write much more about the plot of this book. It has to be experienced. I laughed. I cried. I laughed until I cried and I couldn't tell how or what the hell I was feeling ("I feel too much. That's what's going on."). I cried a lot. About everything. The devastating tragedy in our world. The impermanence of life. The fierce fragility of the human spirit. For everyone. But especially for Oskar, tying on those heavy boots so young.

This playlist is a heartbreaker. One critic described Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close as "consoling". Somehow, I think this playlist is that, too. It consoled me to piece it together as I finished this story. Foer's novel takes place between 2001 and 2003. I was a college student during those years. It wasn't hard to reach back into my own soundtrack for songs that really could've played Oskar's story: Ryan Adams' "Love Is Hell", Wilco's "Kamera", Nada Surf's "Happy Kid", Pearl Jam's "Thumbing My Way". The real (beautiful) downers are the injured heartbearts of the elder Schells: The Frames' "What Happens When The Heart Just Stops", My Morning Jacket's "Death Is The Easy Way", and Beck's "Guess I'm Doing Fine". The Beatles were the single band mentioned in the book - a part of the special bond between Oskar and his dad. They are the past in this playlist. I had to include songs written about September 11th: John Vanderslice's "Exodus Damage" and Bruce Springsteen's "My City of Ruins".  Arcade Fire's "Wake Up" (off their [appropriately] morosely-titled album Funeral) is the tragic moment in which a child is first destroyed by grief. Frightened Rabbit's "My Backwards Walk" brings down the mix, just as Oskar rearranges the photos of a body falling from the towers so that the man flies up into the harbor of a standing window. "We would have been safe."

I finally read this book because the movie is coming out in a few weeks. You see, another thing about me is that I really like to read the books of movies made from books before I go see the movies made from books. But it was the first book off the shelf in my office. It's a small gesture of mindfulness, but I plan to read the books down this case. This is the start of a new year, after all. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close is also a story about writing (as a way of not saying or doing or holding on to so much). Now, instead of collecting books and thoughts, I'm writing a list of everything I want to read (and happen) next, even if "the sad, beautiful fact" is "that we're all going to miss almost everything".  I want to live, instead of  try to. I want each day to be "a day during which I lived my life and didn't think about my life at all."

Soundtrack to a novel: Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer


1. Love Is Hell, Ryan Adams
2. Exodus Damage, John Vanderslice
3. Red Moon, The Walkmen
4. Wake Up, Arcade Fire
5. Fixing a Hole, The Beatles
6. What Happens When The Heart Just Stops, The Frames
7. Old Mythologies, The Barr Brothers
8. Kamera, Wilco
9. Death Is The Easy Way, My Morning Jacket
10. Underneath The Leaves, John Vanderslice
11. Guess I'm Doing Fine, Beck
12. Happy Kid, Nada Surf
13. I Am The Walrus, The Beatles
14. Hold My Hand As I'm Lowered, Noah & the Whale
15. Thumbing My Way, Pearl Jam
16. Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles
17. My Backwards Walk, Frightened Rabbit
18. My City of Ruins, Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band


Listen to this mix on Spotify (partial)