Well, I'll certainly be interested in seeing what they do with We Need to Talk About Kevin.
Monday, February 28, 2011
From page to screen ...
... Your 2011 Books-Into-Films Lineup, From Eyre To Water To Desert. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My apologies ...
.. to Cormac McCarthy. Debbie and I just watched his play The Sunset Limited with Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. Jackson has just saved Jones from throwing himself in front of a subway train -- the Sunset Express -- and brought him back to his apartment. Jackson is an ex-con who is now deeply religious and feels he has been brought into contact with Jones for a reason. Jones is a professor who has concluded that the world and life are utterly void of meaning. They talk, and their conversation is intense.
I still think The Road is a lousy novel, but The Sunset Limited is both riveting and moving.
Here's a review: 'The Sunset Limited': Is Tommy Lee Jones' HBO film the greatest Cormac McCarthy adaptation?
Who touches this ...
... really does touch a man: Book bound in human skin goes on display in Devon. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
As a bonus, you are also introduced to the phrase "anthropodermic bibliopegy."
Ouch ...
... American Publishing: A Lesson From Tolstoy's Inkwell. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
What the public wants (certainly the literate public) is not the book jacket, or the typeface, or the quality of the paper, or the "feel" of a book -- what the public wants is the blood and guts of the author, the contact of the reader's mind with the author's mind -- and the most efficient vehicle for that contact is now the electronic book, the E-book.
Methinks that's so. But what I found most disturbing in this piece was this: "Most copy editors don't read books, they use software to locate possible grammar and punctuation problems." I was for several years a copy editor of books. I cannot imagine not reading every word of a manuscript.
Lorin Stein...
...and The Paris Review. It's like Wieseltier said: "Don't get caught up in all the parties."
A darting spirit ...
... Ron Slate on How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer, by Sarah Bakewell.
As noted earlier, Montaigne was born on this date in 1533.
Bad not always good ...
... Bad book reviews = great sales?
This Stanford study by two business professors confirms the conventional wisdom — to a point. Bad reviews can dramatically boost sales for obscure and up-and-coming writers. They don’t help the famous.
Introducing ...
... Broadcastr.com, descibed in an email as follows:
... [a} new, free social-media platform for location-based audio and storytelling. Broadcastr lets people easily create and share recordings on an interactive map. We have apps for the Android and iPhone coming out in the next two weeks that will let users hear an automatic stream of stories based on their physical location, like a museum tour of the entire world.
The really golden years ...
... "From Fifty To Sixty, One Is Free From All Ills": Po Chu-i.
The composer Lou Harrison told me once that your best years were your 50s, because you knew what you wanted to do, you know how to do, and you still had the energy.
The composer Lou Harrison told me once that your best years were your 50s, because you knew what you wanted to do, you know how to do, and you still had the energy.
Nullifying identity ...
... Jorge Luis Borges & the plural I. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
For Borges, infinity is always serial; it demands replication ad infinitum. One of his favorite figures for infinitude is the mirror image, that vertiginous repetition of the same mute yet glimmering reflection. Hence, too, his related horror of mirrors: "I have been horrified before all mirrors," he wrote in the poem "The Mirrors": "I look on them as infinite, elemental/ fulfillers of a very ancient pact/ to multiply the world."
Thought for the day ...
Every one rushes elsewhere and into the future, because no one wants to face one's own inner self.- Michel de Montaigne, born on this date in 1533
Sunday, February 27, 2011
Worthy but forgotten ...
... The 10 best Neglected literary classics - in pictures. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
My review ...
... of Patricia Highsmith's selected Novels and Stories: Unsettling prose from author of "Strangers on a Train."
Thought for the day ...
We are not primarily put on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.- Peter De Vries, born on this date in 1910
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Hmm ...
... Owl Criticism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
An odd piece. We are told that no one loves a reviewer, but that there are reviews so great that they that amount to a gift pointing you to something that will enhance your life. That would seem to be a reason to at least like a reviewer.
We are also told that a reviewer's opinion ought to be "based on a description and a judicious citation of evidence." But the swipe at Michelle Bachmann -- that she makes "outrageous statements simply in order to become famous" -- is itself not backed up with any evidence. We simply have to take Baxter's word for it that (a) she makes outrageous statements and (b) that her motive for making such statements is is order to become famous. The only outrageous statement by Bachmann that I have heard of was the use of the phrase "armed and dangerous." But the phrase was taken out of context and referred not to being armed with weapons, but with information. Hardly outrageous.
Thought for the day ...
I write a story as if it were a letter to someone and essentially, that's what you do.- Theodore Sturgeon, born on this date in 1918
Friday, February 25, 2011
Who knew?
... Thucydides Hates “Realists.”
Theoretical realism would strike Thucydides as barking nonsense — the kind of idea that could only appeal to people with little experience of actual affairs. Thucydides was not a realist in this sense; he was something much smarter. He was realistic.
Avoiding ruts ...
... Flannery O’Connor on the Banning of Books in High Schools. (Hat tip, Cynthia Haven.)
The real problem, she says, is not that the schools are assigning “dirty” books, but that they are assigning a preponderance of modern books, and that there seems to be no clear purpose behind the teaching of literature in most middle and high schools other than to try to capture the “interest” of the adolescent mind. This principle—the idea that it is the school’s duty to excite or gratify the unformed tastes of teenagers—she calls “the devil of Educationism…the kind that can be cast out only by prayer and fasting,” and she notes with bemusement that mid-20th century America seems to be “the first age in history which has asked the child what he would tolerate learning.”
Her honor ...
... LAILA LALAMI TO JUDGE 2ND ANNUAL 3QD ARTS & LITERATURE PRIZE. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Breaking silence ...
... Liu's Family 'Hostages'. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
"Can't go out. My whole family are hostages," Liu Xia said. Later she wrote, "I only saw him once," apparently referring to her husband, Liu Xiaobo.
Thought for the day ...
If you believe in an unseen Christ, you will believe in the unseen Christlike potential of others.- Anthony Burgess, born on this date in 1917
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Finally ...
... Charlie Rose Talks to Nassim Taleb. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The "Black Swan" problem comes from a high dose of unpredictability that people do not take into account. It makes the world less and less forecastable. Now, if the world is not easy to forecast, what do you do? You build reserves. You try to not have to rely on forecasts. If you have debt in a system, you need to be very good at forecasting.
Scribbling magic lines ...
... Allen Ginsberg’s 'Howl’: 'I scribbled magic lines from my real mind’. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)
Howl, the film, brilliantly brings alive the story of the poem, mixing a dramatisation of the trial with reflections from Ginsberg (superbly played by Franco) and hallucinatory animations by the graphic-artist Eric Drooker, who collaborated with Ginsberg on a collection of illustrated poems in 1995.
This is worrisome ...
... THE OLD ORDER IS BREAKING DOWN.
I must confess that I have lately felt that the world order at present is extremely wobbly.
I must confess that I have lately felt that the world order at present is extremely wobbly.
I link to this ...
... simply because I am presuming readers of this blog will recognize the name Emmanuel Goldstein: Odd target.
Blood and soil ...
... Benghazi's vicious revolutions.
... Appian, one of the fairer historians of the Spartacus slave war, was caught up in this Cyrene revolt in the Nile delta as a young man. He was the writer on Spartacus who best knew what it was like to be pursued by rebels of highly unreliable behaviour.
Charmingly self-confident ...
... Niall Ferguson: 'Westerners don't understand how vulnerable freedom is'.
"The moral simplification urge is an extraordinarily powerful one, especially in this country, where imperial guilt can lead to self-flagellation," he explains. "And it leads to very simplistic judgments. The rulers of western Africa prior to the European empires were not running some kind of scout camp. They were engaged in the slave trade. They showed zero sign of developing the country's economic resources. Did Senegal ultimately benefit from French rule? Yes, it's clear. And the counterfactual idea that somehow the indigenous rulers would have been more successful in economic development doesn't have any credibility at all."
No mere ornament ...
... Poetry in Revolt. (Hat tip, Rud Bowden.)
Of course, this was also a situation where dissent could come at a price.
Thought for the day ...
Art must be parochial in the beginning to be cosmopolitan in the end.- George Moore, born on this date in 1852
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Yes, I'm shamelessly plugging ...
... my blogging partner (who doesn't know that I'm doing this): A Portfolio of Writing.
Ho hum ...
... What do we learn when we diagnose genius? (Hat tip, Christopher Guerin.)
The answer to the question is, most likely, a misdiagnosis.
Thought for the day ...
Even scientific knowledge, if there is anything to it, is not a random observation of random objects; for the critical objectivity of significant knowledge is attained as a practice only philosophically in inner action.- Karl Jaspers, born on this date in 1883
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
What is on my mind ...
... think about it, ye who admire Melville (as I do):
All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event --in the living act, the undoubted deed --there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines. Take off thine eye! more intolerable than fiends' glarings is a doltish stare! So, so; thou reddenest and palest; my heat has melted thee to anger-glow. But look ye, Starbuck, what is said in heat, that thing unsays itself. There are men from whom warm words are small indignity. I meant not to incense thee. Let it go.
A beautiful scrapbook ...
... John Dickinson on the The Orators by W.H. Auden. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Troublesome opacity ...
... Wikileaks needs transparency more than ever. (Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Criticism of financial dealings is not a Pentagon smear campaign, but a serious question Wikileaks and Julian Assange have brought on themselves. Not only that, but it also made an easier argument for the US government to cut off Wikileaks' cash flow. Transparency could have laid waste to any notions the organisation has been embroiled in criminal activity.
Enhancing what we see ...
... Thoughtful Gardening.
Gardening, he insists, "is dulled and limited if defined by moral purposes that are driven by other concerns." Instead, he argues, "thoughtful gardening practices its pretenses in a conscious, independent way. It is not governed by bossy fashion …. Thoughtful gardening leads instead to knowledge, an asset that is intertwined with gardening's roots."
No leap involved ...
... Newman’s Assent of Faith. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
... the assent of faith has a cumulative and pain staking dimension; we grow into a conviction, rather than leap into it. Newman used the example of a polygon inscribed in a circle. As its sides become smaller it tends to become the circle. It never becomes the circle but the mind closes the gap.
A persuasive message ...
... Io Sono Con Te: A film with a René Girard p.o.v.
And perhaps it’s a message that has won: René contends that, from these archaic societies to the Christian era, the word “sacrifice” changed. When used in the archaic world, it always meant the sacrifice of another – a human or animal sacrifice. Now, “sacrifice” always suggests a sacrifice of oneself, of doing without something.
In case you wondered ...
... The true cost of publishing on the Amazon Kindle. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day ...
Perfect freedom is reserved for the man who lives by his own work and in that work does what he wants to do.- R. G. Collingwood, born on this date in 1889
Monday, February 21, 2011
Ongoing ...
... Blogs Wane as the Young Drift to Sites Like Twitter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Gee, I blog, and I have a Twitter account. And I'm old, not young. As a former editor, I have say I sometimes wonder about the NYT. In the meantine: If This Is Monday, It Must Be Time for Another ‘Death of Blogging’ Story.
Gee, I blog, and I have a Twitter account. And I'm old, not young. As a former editor, I have say I sometimes wonder about the NYT. In the meantine: If This Is Monday, It Must Be Time for Another ‘Death of Blogging’ Story.
Happy anniversary ...
... The New Yorker's 85th.
See also: Whose Line Is It, Anyway? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It will be human. Its general tenor will be one of gaiety, wit and satire, but it will be more than a jester. It will be not what is commonly called sophisticated, in that it will assume a reasonable degree of enlightenment on the part of its readers. It will hate bunk . . . .
So wrote Harold Ross, the New Yorker's first editor. Wonder what he would think of today's New Yorker.
Post bumped.
Honor roll ...
... 10 Greatest Philosophers in History.
I, too, am partial to Eric Hoffer. And I guess Socrates didn't make the list because he didn't write anything
Cool beauty ...
... Lake Superior Waves Video. (Hat tip, Dave Lull, who lives in Superior, WI. Nippy there, folks!)
Advance notice ...
... A couple of weeks away... (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I thought Mark's After Atheism was excellent, though Mark is far from being a conventional agnostic. What he is recommending, in fact, is the practice of apophasis, the negative way that, paradoxically, strengthens faith precisely by, to a certain degree, marginalizing belief.
Formative vs. instumental ...
... The Last Professor.
See also Jacques Barzun on Nock's Theory of Education. You can read the book here.
Strange and magnificent ...
... The News From Everywhere. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
If Chatwin, in the words of Mr. Shakespeare, "traveled as much to leave one self behind as to find another," his final illness settled him. He visited Mt. Athos and declared himself a convert to Greek Orthodoxy. "The search for nomads is a quest for God," he wrote in a notebook.
Truly admirable ...
... The Original American Idol.
Washington's contemporaries hailed his Revolutionary War victories at Trenton and Yorktown, but they honored him more for risking his fame, fortune and life in taking on military responsibilities for which he wasn't paid—and then giving up command to return to his farm and family. The young American citizenry esteemed him for bringing together and presiding over the Constitutional Convention, but they honored him more for his steadfastness in holding the colonies together and facing down potential insurrectionists who might have seized the government and made him a military dictator. And while they appreciated him returning to public service as president, they honored him more for leaving an office that many expected him to hold for life.
Wolf Hall
Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, which follows the saga of Henry VIII down to the execution of Thomas More in 1535, has been cast in reviews as a novel primarily about Thomas Cromwell, the King's confidant and chief political advisor. Having finished the novel this weekend, I want to challenge this assumption.
It seems to me that while Mantel processes the tumult of Henry's reign through the eyes - and experiences - of Cromwell, the novel is as much about Thomas Wolsey and the Boleyn Clan as it is about Cromwell.
At first, this surprised me: but by the end of the book it seemed clear that Mantel intendedWolf Hall as the first novel in a series of three.
Imagine this: Wolf Hall addresses Wolsey's collapse and Cromwell's rise; the second volume covers Cromwell's demise; and the third chronicles the growth of Edward VI and the controversies swirling around Jane Grey. The trilogy, as it were, ends with the ascent of Mary Tudor in 1553.
What's the point of all this conjecture? Wolf Hall was the name of the Seymour family's principal estate - and this is where Mantel's novel ends: that is, with hints of Anne Boleyn's collapse and even more subtle hints of Jane Seymour's rise.
In some ways, it's odd that Mantel named her novel as she did - for the Seymour Clan does not enter the book, really, until its final hundred and fifty pages. A more apt title might have been Austin Friars, Cromwell's perch from 1527 forward.
To close: I can't imagine that Mantel is done with her work - and I certainly hope she is not, because this novel was an addiction. Hulking, strenuous, insightful: it was all of these things - and more!
Plus, I wanted to add: Mantel's a master of style. Her use of the colon and semi-colon is tremendous. Really, it is. She writes in an organic way, one which perfectly matchs the content of her book.
Hilary Mantel: I may not always love your essays, but this was one great novel. Thank you! (It's not often that I make it through six hundred pages without complaint...)
Thought for the day ...
In a world of prayer, we are all equal in the sense that each of us is a unique person, with a unique perspective on the world, a member of a class of one.- W. H. Auden, born on this date in 1907
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Vintage review ...
... William Carlos Williams On Wallace Stevens. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The language is constrained by the meter instead of there being—an impossible peak it may be—a meter discovering itself in the language.
Powerful endorsement ...
... Ballantine Ale and Hemingway.
I didn't know Hemingway was a fan, but I sure was. Ballantine ale was uniquely tasty. Didn't know it was still available either, but the unique taste disappeared after Schmidt's bought Ballantine.
I didn't know Hemingway was a fan, but I sure was. Ballantine ale was uniquely tasty. Didn't know it was still available either, but the unique taste disappeared after Schmidt's bought Ballantine.
Song and dance ...
Last night Debbie and I went to see the Nichole Canuso Dance Company and The Mural and the Mint perform As the Eyes of the Seahorse. Nichole Canuso and The Mural and the Mint's Michael Kiley are neighbors of ours. Their little son Simon often brightens our day by impromptu visits (a few weeks ago he helped Debbie clear the snow off the deck).
Anyway, we were both very impressed. The Mural and the Mint's refreshingly lyrical rock was finely done, and the dances were consistently compelling (one in particular, performed by two women dancers, had a Patricia Highsmith intensity to it). These two groups are worth keeping an eye on.
The event, by the way, took place in the Maas Building, a former factory in lower Kensington, not far from where my family lived before I was born.
Thought for the day ...
The wish to pray is a prayer in itself. God can ask no more than that of us.- Georges Bernanos, born on this date in 1888
Saturday, February 19, 2011
Meaning vs. information ...
I have bumped this post because I only skimmed the review before I posted it. I have now read it fairly carefully, and plan on reading it yet again. It has much bearing on life as we now live it. It seems, for instance, pertinent to the WikiLeaks business. Talk about the separation of information and knowledge. WikiLeaks provides information. Determining the meaning of that information is something altogether different, and those who think they know more about what is going on in the world simply from the information provided by WikiLeaks are, I believe, deluding themselves.
... Freeman Dyson on How We Know. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Even physics, the most exact and most firmly established branch of science, is still full of mysteries. We do not know how much of Shannon’s theory of information will remain valid when quantum devices replace classical electric circuits as the carriers of information. Quantum devices may be made of single atoms or microscopic magnetic circuits. All that we know for sure is that they can theoretically do certain jobs that are beyond the reach of classical devices. Quantum computing is still an unexplored mystery on the frontier of information theory. Science is the sum total of a great multitude of mysteries. It is an unending argument between a great multitude of voices. It resembles Wikipedia much more than it resembles the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Incisive Nige ...
... Ball Feels the Heat. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I fins something preternatural about the extent to which Nige and I think alike (of course I could say the dame about Dave).
People without inwardness ...
... The Disneyfication of death. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I am glad that, as Catholic, when I finally get around to shuffling off my mortal coil, I will be spared any "celebration of life" -- a phrase commonly in obituaries these days. I want a requiem Mass, preferably sung, and I hope, as Rimbaud put it in one of his poems, that at least "one prayer shall rise."
Amen, amen ...
... Against interpretation, against allegory, for Kafka.
I enjoy Poe, but any analysis that leads to you plumping for him over Kafka is inherently flawed.
To put it mildly. I also happen to think that Edmund Wilson is somewhat overrated.
We link ...
... you decide:
On the other: A LIBRARIAN REACTS TO “A LIBRARIAN REACTS TO WIKILEAKS.”
On the one hand: A LIBRARIAN REACTS TO WIKILEAKS.
(Hat tip, Lee Lowe.)
Re-situating origins ...
... Handing Out Knives to Madmen.
The charge brought against Socrates, by a team of voluntary prosecutors, was impiety—they accused him of impropriety in respect to the gods and corruption of the youth. I would suggest that Socrates was convicted not because the jurors were religious fanatics, not because they had lost their democratic tolerance, but because he seemed to them unreasonably unwilling to take responsibility for what he said in public. Today we allow pundits to say what they please, even if their speech has pernicious or even fatal effects. I think we are right to do so, and I think that 280 (out of 501) Athenian jurymen were wrong when they voted to condemn Socrates. But I think they were right to believe that when prominent public figures refuse to take personal responsibility for the consequences of their speech, democracy is in grave danger.
Class conflict ...
... Why 'King's Speech' Leaves Me Stuttering. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I haven't seen The King's Speech, though I intend to. Debbie has seen it, and thought it was wonderful. I have seen the new version of True Grit, and it's OK, but it lacks the joie de vivre of the original. Oh, I know the new one is supposed to be truer to Charles Portis's novel. But being faithful to novels is not what the films based on novels are supposed to be about. If you want fidelity to the novel, read the novel. A film is an independent work of art and should be judged on its own terms, not the terms of the work on which it is based. Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train is far from faithful to Patricia Highsmith's novel, but it is one of Hitchcock's best films. The new True Grit seems longer than it is, because it is slower than it needs to be. The real difference between the new version and the original is a matter of tempo, and the original's tempo is better.
Thought for the day ...
You can reconstruct the picture from chaos and memory's ruins.- Kay Boyle, born on this date in 1902
Friday, February 18, 2011
Much in what he says ...
... Reading is overrated. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The difference between pain and pleasure is that the former overwhelms the latter, but no amount of white truffles, operatic arias or sex will drive away the agony of a bad toothache, much less the pain of the death of a loved one. And a good book certainly won't get close. Why claim that it might, or can?
Fine, fine theater ...
Last night, Debbie and I went to the Arden Theatre's production of Eugene O'Neill's A Moon for the Misbegotten, which Terry Teachout wrote about here: I'd rather be in Philadelphia. Everything Terry says is correct. If you live in these parts, or plan to visit anytime soon, try to go. It's a beautiful rendering of a play that is both funny and deeply touching, and it closes February 27.
Thought for the day ...
Writers are frequently asked why they wrote their first book. A more interesting answer might come from asking them why they wrote their second one.- Len Deighton, born on this date in 1929
Thursday, February 17, 2011
A New Literary Journal
Introducing: The Common. Quite an advisory board...(And guess what? It'll be in print!)
Here we go again ...
... God and Gossip. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Conservative and reactionary critics of science have often accused it of dehumanizing us. They will be delighted to learn that Bering, who clearly implies that we would be better off if we were to follow the lead of our evolutionary cousins and begin shamelessly shitting on ourselves in public, has made their case for them. But perhaps this is unfair. (Why, though, should I care about fairness, which is no doubt the product of an adaptive illusion?)
And the winners were ...
... Celebrating 61 Years of National Book Awards Poetry. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Something new to me ...
... and maybe you, too: They Were Found Wanting (The Transylvanian Trilogy, Book 2).
This week's batch ...
... of TLS Letters: Swift and colonialism, Chinese archives, Honeybees, and more!
Thought for the day ...
Stillness is tranquility of the inner life, the quiet at the depths of its hidden stream. Stillness is a collected, total presence, a being all there, receptive, alert, ready.-Romano Guardini, born on this date in 1885
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Q & A ...
... Travels in China: An Interview with Dr. Paula Cohen.
I know Paula. She used to review for me. She is one the smartest people I know. She's good-looking, too. And while I'm at it, let me plug her latest novel, What Alice Knew. I loved it. But what is most interesting is that Debbie couldn't put it down.
So you think you got problems ...
... well, consider this: Sentencing Guidelines: Stanley Fish’s How to Write a Sentence. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)