Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: May 2012

Thursday, May 31, 2012

And here it is …

… Cover Hamilton Arts & Letters Spring Summer 2012 - Spring / Summer 2012 Hamilton Arts and Letters magazine issue five.1.

I would have linked to this earlier, but I was out all day packing books to be sent to the Philadelphia Prison System.

Yes!

… Misreading "On the Road"— Terry Dunford. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In enlisting On the Road to support a liberal history of the 1950s, academics first ignore the narrative timeframe of the novel and capriciously place On the Road in its “context” that is the “Nightmare Decade” of the 1950s (title of Fred Cook’s book on Senator Joseph McCarthy). Second, they find somebody else to quote. To demonstrate that On the Road is contemptuous of American culture, Professor Michael Hrebeniak, in his 2006 Action Writings: Jack Kerouac’s Wild Form, fills a half dozen pages quoting Sigmund Freud, Marxist Norman O. Brown, leftist poet Robert Duncan, and Normal Mailer, but not a probative word from On the Road.¹⁶

Hard to believe that doofuses like me saw On the Road as a paean to America. But then doofuses like me had a great time during those awful '50s.

FYI …

… PJ Lifestyle —10 Reasons You Should Skip Traditional Publishers and Self-Publish Ebooks Instead.

One more time …

… Come Again: Literary Sequels on AbeBooks.

What could be more pleasant …

… A YouTube Affair With Fred Astaire - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Engrossing talk …

… Jitney | August Wilson | The Verbal Music of Life | Theater Review by Terry Teachout - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… the simple structural device that propels the play—the incoming calls that keep the pay phone of Becker's Car Service ringing at frequent but unpredictably irregular intervals—ensures that the action will never be sidetracked by the savory digressions with which the script is salted.

A picture is worth...

...An Ambitious Project to Turn the Literary Canon Into Comics

Roundup …

… Quid plura? | “See the curtains hangin’ in the window…”

A bunch of stuck-ups...

...Hay literary festival booksellers fight to ban 'soulless' Kindles from world-famous event

Idioms …

… Mastering the Finer Points of American Slang - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

One way to learn the latest in conversational English: Rana Al Ruhaily, 29, a doctor who moved to Chicago from Saudi Arabia last year, says she and her husband consider the show "Family Guy" to be required TV viewing, to help them fill in gaps.

Hmm …

… Canada by Richard Ford - review | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The portraits of Bev and Neeva are masterly. These are perfectly ordinary people who get dragged down by the force of that "great, unspecified gravity" and, still gamely in pursuit of "normality", turn to desperate measures to solve the difficulties of their lives. Inevitably, the beef-smuggling scheme goes wrong, the Indians threaten serious violence, until Bev and Neeva can see no way out of their predicament other than to rob a bank and use the proceeds to pay off their ill-gotten debts. That plan also goes awry, of course, and one day the police arrive and the couple are put in handcuffs and taken away, with no immediate arrangements in place for the care of the twins.

Guess you have to read it. Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.

Non-labelable...

...Literary Politics: Who Would Jane Austen Vote For?

Enthusiasm …

… Why I Love Marilynne Robinson : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… even though I’m a more or less a fully paid-up atheist, I’m more drawn to Robinson’s Christian humanism than I am to the Dawkins-Dennett-Hitchens-Harris school of anti-theist fighting talk.

Ready, set …

… Twitter is a clunky way of delivering fiction | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

I can see how Twitter is a perfect fit for genuine flash fiction, where the form (140-character bursts) meshes wholly with the function (epigrammatism), but the problem with a longer story is that the medium isn't integral to the work itself, and ends up as nothing more than a quirky/clunky method of delivery.

Power vs. power …

… “Our privileges exacerbate the horrors of others”: Junot Díaz on race, privilege, and J.R.R. Tolkien | The Book Haven.

In memoriam …

… To Hear Doc Watson, You Really Had to See Him - NYTimes.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thought for the day …

The only menace is inertia.

— Saint-John Perse, born on this date in 1887

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

At times, you wonder about Watson’s mental health. Don’t worry, this isn’t libellous – his friends worry about it, too. We’re told that when Watson phoned his researcher at 3am to have a ‘frantic, whispered conversation’ with her about some scandal that is so boring I have literally forgotten what it was about, she ‘became anxious about his state of mind’. We’re also told that, one time, after The Times did a Reservoir Dogs-style mock-up of Watson and other Labourites who were said to be part of Gordon Brown’s sinister cabal of enforcers and smearers, ‘Watson walked along the beach, in tears’ and then phoned his friend Sion Simon, a former Labour MP, and started ‘literally raving’ and ‘talking crazy’.

Like word games

… then you may just like this: Tingo - The interesting words game for iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPod touch (3rd generation), iPod touch (4th generation) and iPad on the iTunes App Store.

Life and art…

… Elif Batuman — Diary: Pamuk’s Museum — LRB 7 June 2012. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Ten years later, Pamuk came up with an insane plan: to write a novel in the form of a museum catalogue, while simultaneously building the museum to which it referred. The plot of the novel would be fairly straightforward: over many years, an unhappy lover contrives to steal a large number of objects belonging to his unattainable beloved, after whose untimely death he proceeds to buy her family’s house and turn it into a museum.

You might think that Pamuk’s first step, as a writer, would have been to start writing. In fact, his first step was to contact a real-estate agent. He needed to buy a house for his future heroine, Füsun.

Memorial …

… Paul Desmond: 35 Years. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

From Ted Hughes …

… Dear Peter | New Writing | Granta Magazine. (Hat tip, Rus Bowden.)

Hugo is an excellent movie with old-world charm and brilliant cinematography. The entire movie takes place on a 1930s Paris railway station, with flowergirls and porters and policemen and old lovers milling about. The colours, sights and sounds are all captured with accuracy (well, I wasn't there, but it felt right). The story of Hugo, the young prodigy who is trying to fix an automaton bequeathed by his father. Remember that iconic picture of the moon with a bullet in its face? That's from "Voyage to the Moon", a 1902 film by Georges Méliès, who is also a character in Hugo (Méliès is played by Ben Kingsley). A touching heartwarming story, Hugo shines for the absolutely stunning acting on show by child artist Asa Butterfield. Must watch!!!

Thought for the day …

There is no secret to success except hard work and getting something indefinable which we call 'the breaks.' In order for a writer to succeed, I suggest three things — read and write - and wait.

— Countee Cullen, born on this date in 1903

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

It, Them, and others …

… “Men in Black,” “Prometheus,” and Fictional Aliens : The New Yorker. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Uneasy intersection …

… Los Angeles Review of Books - Someone Else's Martyr. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I must admit that, prior to picking up Hole guitarist Eric Erlandson's Letters to Kurt, I had never listened to a Hole, or even a Nirvana, album all the way through. Yet I was intrigued by the book's format: a sincere preface followed by 52 almost impressionistic sketches that displayed, at first glance, a certain lightness of touch, a (perhaps unsurprising) musicality in the prose. Erlandson, present at the creation as co-founder of Hole, seemed a promising guide to all I'd missed, even if he was guilty of occasionally overstating his place in the grand scheme.

A well-ordered spirit …

… Sigrid Undset’s Essays for our Time | First Things. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The essays in Stages on the Road were written while Sigrid Undset was experiencing a full flush of earthly praise and material success, and it is lovely to contemplate that while the Nobel Prize committee was honoring this woman with what is arguably the most coveted award in Literature—for her epic novels Kristin Lavransdatter and The Master of Hestviken—Undset was focusing on the martyrdoms of the cheerfully subversive Margaret Clitherow and the besieged Jesuit, Robert Southwell. So detached was she from the prize—called “an homage rendered to a poetic genius whose roots must be in a great and well-ordered spirit”—that Undset’s brief remarks at Stockholm’s banquet amounted to little more than her saying, “everyone in Norway asked me to give regards to Sweden!”

Incorrigible life …

… Philip Larkin: Desired Reading by Christopher Ricks | The New York Review of Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

We are to recognize here the lasting power of Dr. Johnson: “The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.” For Larkin, as for Johnson, what might seem to some of us a third possibility was never really a possibility at all: What about enabling the readers to bring about a better way of life, to better life? To the conservatively tragic cast of mind, life is incorrigible. “Human life,” Johnson said, “is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.” Life is not something that can be made better other than palliatively (not that this is nothing), and life cannot be bested. Or worsted.

Briefly put …

… Entertainment - Ta-Nehisi Coates - Dorothy Parker in the Twitter Age - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Postliterate Holmes …

… Los Angeles Review of Books - Whither Holmes? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Deeper and more subtle …

… Peter Green Reviews Two Donna Leon Books | The New Republic.

Death at La Fenice came out in 1992, and since then Leon has steadily produced a new case for Commissario Brunetti every year: with Beastly Things, her twenty-first volume, the series might be said to have come of age. Yet to a striking degree it has not changed. Almost all the main recurrent characters—the Vice-Questore, Giuseppe Patta, Brunetti’s pompous boss; Lt. Scarpa, his Sicilianbête noire, and other members of the Questura—were in place from the start. The only later additions have been Brunetti’s faithful Sergeant (later promoted Inspector) Vianello, and Patta’s elegant, computer-savvy secretary Elettra Zorzi, who advances the cause of justice (and circumvents a mass of red tape) by blithely hacking into the records of just about every institution and government department in Italy. These new faces are partly balanced by the disappearance of the diva Flavia Petrelli and her lover, the archaeologist Brett Lynch, last seen in Acqua Alta. The coming-of-age is also, inevitably, beginning to confront Leon with problems of chronological plausibility. Though all her cases could, in theory, take place within three or four years of each other, Brunetti’s children Raffi and Chiara (for example) must very soon finish school and college, find jobs, get married, fly the coop, and eschew Paola’s daily magical meals.

In case you wondered …

… Four Reasons to Read Mario Vargas Llosa - The Common Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Forty years after its original publication, when the novel’s political themes have lost their topicality, it is easier to appreciate that Conversation in the Cathedral is a work of fiction in which Vargas Llosa transformed personal experiences and historical events through his powerful literary imagination. One does not need to know anything about the details of Peruvian history to appreciate the genius of the novel’s literary construction or its moral dimensions—the intensifying anguish of a conflicted individual who does not know what to do about the human misery that surrounds him.

Literature and technology …

… JoyceWays: Ulysses iPod App | A Piece of Monologue: Literature, Philosophy, Criticism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Luminous

… dream-hill grass
standing on end at echo even.

— Denise Levertov, "Earth Psalm"

In memoriam …

… Lincoln Hunter Web Log: Paul Fussell - why I will miss him..

On the scene …

… Hopkins On Krakatoa — Hooting Yard. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Pedagogical hip …

… Jed Perl Reviews Susan Sontag’s “As Consciousness Is Harnessed To Flesh: Journals And Notebooks, 1964–1980” | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

THE IMPERSONALITY of so much of Sontag’s writings—an impersonality by turns bold, willful, and elegant—naturally leaves us wondering whether a different kind of writer will be revealed in her journals and notebooks. Will the writing be more spontaneous and less guarded? Will it turn out that there was some lyric mode that she chose to suppress in what she published? The first volume of her journals, Reborn, which came out four years ago, took her from fourteen to thirty and was very much a portrait of the artist as a young woman. There was a winning guilelessness about the person revealed in those pages, the California adolescent hungry for experience, equal parts passionate and confused. Now, with the second of three volumes of journals and notebooks skillfully edited by her son, the writer David Rieff, we are in the period when Sontag was a figure to be reckoned with. As Consciousness Is Harnessed to Flesh moves from 1964 to 1980, the years when she published three works of fiction and five works of non-fiction, ranging from her earliest essay collection, Against Interpretation, through On Photography, Under the Sign of Saturn, and Illness as Metaphor.

Thought for the day …

It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.

— G.K. Chesterton, born on this date in 1874

James Baldwin

James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain is a book that I've wanted to read for a long time. Last week, I had the chance to do so.

I can imagine there's considerable scholarly commentary swirling around this book. That said, I did have a few observations:

First, the novel really is brutal. The story, the characters: everything is built on exposing the harsh realities of the African-American experience in this country during the first half of the twentieth century. It's also a book, though, built on exposing the complexities of the African-American community.

True, Baldwin's characters confront the inequities of the white world: but they engage in internal battles as well. There's no way around the fact that some of the most malicious characters in this novel are the black men closest to Baldwin's central character, John.

Another point: were I to characterize this book, I'd file it -- I was thinking last night -- under ecstatic realism. Baldwin's novel is built on a religious zeal, a spiritual intensity. And that fervor defines his story: it's everywhere.

The spiritual element of the book is brutal in itself: his characters evoke faith in order to express (and conceal) hatred, fear, and guilt. The religion exposed in Baldwin's novel is one built on a measure of ecstasy (reminiscent of the early Quakers, for instance) and a simultaneous measure of ruthlessness.

But Baldwin was a gifted stylist, and reading his work is an odd pleasure: it's a reminder that an author can write beautifully, while telling a horrifying story. And that's a tremendous accomplishment, indeed.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Doctor's prescription...

...Abraham Verghese, author of ‘Cutting for Stone,’ describes his writing life

Something to look into …

… Short Stories. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I've only read about four of these. I shall have look the others up.

Hmm …

… Ink Desk | St. Austin Review. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I grew up with the "mumble Mass." It was infinitely superior to the ghastly thing that is the Pope Paul Mass. Even the recent revisions to the latter have not made it any significantly better. It is an object lesson in tastelessness. I only attend it when I have no choice.

Prophet of BAD …

… The University Bookman: ‘The Farther from the Scene of Horror, the Easier the Talk’. (Ht tip, Dave Lull.)

Unlike baseball …

… Anthony Quinn: cricket and the novel | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thoughts on The Grey...

...One of the most harrowing, and most brilliant, films I have seen in a long time. Scary, spooky (spookier than The Blair Witch Project, and that's saying something), the biting cold, the wilderness. Nothing supernatural. Man versus Wolf. But that's enough to make you sit by the edge of the seat, fingers intermittently pressed into the ears. The camerawork adds to the chilly effect, zooming in on the encounters with the beast, or on a steep fall off a cliff, or a sordid drowning. Liam Neeson is rock solid as the lead, ably supported by a cast that includes Dermot Mulroney (of My Best Friend's Wedding) and Dallas Roberts. But more than anything else, the film, based on a short story by Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, inquires into several questions: the meaning of life, our loves, what it means to survive a tragedy that's killed many and continues to kill others one by one, the importance of faith (and questioning it). And how, finally, when one does not have an option, to stare death in the face.

Hmm …

… Embrace doubt, reject certitude, and move past moral smugness — Secular Right. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

As an empirical matter I think Ross, and Christians more generally, over-read thecausal role of their faith in Western history. Though the Christian religion certainly effected some change, it is important to note that its emergence and rise to prominence was coincident with a whole host of other changes in the world of antiquity.

True. But if you subtract Christianity from the equation, you're going to have a very hard time working out the equation.

Wow!

… On a wing and a prayer: The extraordinary hanging monasteries that cling to the sides of cliffs | Mail Online. (Hat tip, Joseph Chovanes.)

Memory and mowing …

… Nigeness: Cut Grass. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I think the memory slips a bit as we get older simply because we have more to remember — the amount stored grows ever larger. I do find I am not as quick on the draw as I used to.

Look and listen …

… Michael Vitez.

Trust me on this: Mike is a very good writer and a very good reporter. Also, a very nice guy. This book is well worth your consideration.

Christian imagery while...

....Revisiting Tagore

The letter just quoted was to C.F. Andrews, and Bhattacharya's frequent use of the correspondence with Andrews is an aspect of his book all Tagore scholars can take note. From his moving section headed “Spells of Depression” (pages 48-53) we learn that Andrews was someone to whom Tagore could speak more candidly about his inner life than to anyone else. It is tempting sometimes to dismiss Andrews as a sycophant, but it must have been deeply helpful to both Gandhi and Tagore to have among their friends a man whose Christian religion was rooted in suffering. In May 1914, only six months after the triumph of the Nobel Prize, it was Christian imagery that Tagore reached for when he wrote to Andrews: “I am struggling on my way through the wilderness. The light from across the summit is clear; but the shadows are slanting and deep on the slope of the dark valley. My feet are bleeding and I am toiling with panting breath…” (page 49).

Centenary …

… Coloured by the literary richness of White | The Australian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

A truly great writer and a truly great crank.

Academic quarrel …

… Philosophy, lit, etc.: A stinging review by McGinn.

I haven't read any of what is referred to, but the subtitle of the book in question, "How Mind Emerged From Matter," strikes me as a little quaint, given the mysterious nature of "matter".

Illusionists …

… Bruce Benderson on Language Culture Gaps | Word Craft - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thought for the day …

The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.

— Walker Percy, born on this date in 1916

Crime and punishment...

...Letters asked judge for leniency in NJ webcam case

Jackson, a former Rutgers sociology professor whose daughter committed suicide, wrote that Ravi is already paying for any role he had in Clementi's death: "I am convinced that he had no idea that his immature prank would contribute to his roommate's suicide and that he, like me, will punish himself with guilt for the rest of his life."

Alternative history...

...Firang Historian

...Tales of the First Firangis seeks to offer a counterpoint to Edward Said’sOrientalism. Said’s work looms justifiably large in understandings of European attitudes to Asia during and after the age of colonialism. But Orientalism’s long shadow has inadvertently concealed other modes of relations between the West and East. Said focuses on the literature and knowledge formations that accompanied the epoch of European imperialism in the 18th and 19th centuries; as a result, he understands the English and French writing of the Orient as complicit with processes of European global domination. In contrast, Tales of the First Firangis considers transactions between the West and East in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries, a time when European dominance was not yet an assured fact. Whereas Orientalism in Said’s account insists on sharp, photo-negative differences between Europeans and Asians, my project examines the possibility of unexpected blurrings and crossovers.

RIP, if you find the space..

...No Country for Dead Men

In Paris, you end up...

...Doing it like the French

Gamble pays off...

...Wunderkid wins as JPMorgan loses

“If you hand me a list of the top-performing guys in the space, I’d expect to see his name on it,” said one bank executive who works closely with hedge funds. “If you hand me another list of hedge funds that might blow up, I’d expect his name to be on that, too.”

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Q & A …

… 10 Questions for James D. Quinton — fox chase reading series.

Together at last …

… Issa's Untidy Hut: R. H. Blyth and D. H. Lawrence: Flower and Fade.

FYI …

… International Dagger shortlist 2012 | Petrona.

Martin Amis on lots of things …

… Amis: “The world has got drunk, lost its handbag and been sick in the bus so many times now.” | The Book Haven.

Centenary …

… John Cheever: Master of the short story - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The literature of life …

… Truth of Intercourse. Robert Louis Stevenson. 1909-14. Essays: English and American. The Harvard Classics. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

… one thing you can never make Philistine natures understand; one thing, which yet lies on the surface, remains as unseizable to their wits as a high flight of metaphysics—namely, that the business of life is mainly carried on by means of this difficult art of literature, and according to a man’s proficiency in that art shall be the freedom and the fulness of his intercourse with other men. Anybody, it is supposed, can say what he means; and, in spite of their notorious experience to the contrary, people so continue to suppose.

Keeping things brief …

… “The Mind Is a Metaphor” —All Aphorisms, All the Time.

Let we forget …

... maybe the greatest depiction of war's reality ever. (It is John Singer Sargent's Gassed. It is a very large painting and to see it, as I did once at the Boston museum, is overwhelming.) Here is more.

Post bumped.

Classic …

… Miles Davis improvising his incredible score to Louis Malle’s ELEVATOR TO THE GALLOWS. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In case you wondered …

… my politics revealed: The true libertarian.

Inquirer reviews …

… ‘Freeman’ a tale of war and atonement.

… Bissinger’s ‘Father’s Day’: Honest, exalting, frustrating, powerful.

… Author Craig Johnson lives his cowboy dream.

… Young adult books: ‘Black Boy, White School’; ‘What Boys Really Want’.

… Book review: ‘Redefining Diva,’ by Sheryl Lee Ralph.

Thought for the day …

Life is filigree work. What is written clearly is not worth much, it's the transparency that counts.

— Louis-Ferdinand Céline, born on this date in 1894

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Thinking about God …

… Keith Burgess-Jackson: Alvin Plantinga on Theism. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I think if we substitute the term Unconditioned Reality for the now-overloaded term God our thinking clears up a good deal.

Guides …

… Book Review: A Field Guide to the Birds | The Sibley Guide to Birds | Field Guide to Birds of North America - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

From Peterson's "Guide" and Carson's "Silent Spring" a movement was born: environmentalism. It grew out of a new set of relationships between Homo sapiens and nature. Peterson invited the public to care enough about birds to identify them and, by extension, to identify with them. Carson showed that in caring about the fate of another species we were implicitly protecting our own fate as a species. The "Life List" that is kept by most birders acquired a double meaning: It names every live species seen in a person's lifetime.

Too bad. Environmentalism is, in my view, distinctly inferior to old-time conservationism. I know my birds pretty well, from having grown up watching them in the woods around our house and at our feeder. More encounter than course work. I find those who have take-up birding late in life somewhat off-putting, the way cradle Catholics sometimes find converts. Seeing birds is something I prefer to do on my own, never in a group.

Odd list …

… John Mullan's 10 of the best: plays within plays | Books | The Guardian. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Lighten up …

… The Optimistic Directive | Talking Philosophy. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Stephenson … seems to see the current situation as rather problematic because he worries that the current crop science fiction lacks the optimism about the future needed to inspire scientists, engineers and others. To be more specific, if science fiction stories predict an apocalyptic world, then the readers will not be inspired to do things such as inventing space ships or solving the fossil fuel problem.

Probably not …

… Will This Post Make Sam Harris Change His Mind About Free Will? | Cross-Check, Scientific American Blog Network. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

After all, the only thing Harris can say is that Horgan couldn't help posting this, just as Harris can't help thinking that.

Prophet or crank …

… Cultural Critic or Complainer-in-Chief? – Forward.com.

You could call what he’s after secular humanism, a belief that by relentlessly asking the right questions, we can live ethical lives committed to the gradual betterment of society.

This can be seen in the very title of his 2001 novel, “The Corrections,” and in the moral contortions that the book’s hero and Franzen stand-in, Chip, undertakes as he flails around in search of a way to live untainted by the crimes of society.

The problem is that society doesn't commit any crimes. Individuals do. And the questions are perennial, not original.

Weigh in …

… Friends, I wonder... | Facebook. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Hilary Mantel

Here comes the second volume...

An ear for language …

… Ten Authors Who Write Great Dialogue | LitReactor. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Thought for the day …

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

— Mary Wortley Montagu, born on this date in 1689

Books in high places...

...Literary altitude

Friday, May 25, 2012

Looking for answers …

… Cameron Nations: In The Footsteps Of C.S. Lewis: A Pilgrimage.

In his book "The Great Divorce," Lewis posited heaven as a celestial country more real than our own, where the grass pierces the feet of those unfit to stand upon it. Something about the sight of the flowers made me think he had made it there. I paid my solemn respects and, after a few moments of silence, turned to leave.

Faulkner colorized …

… The Sound and the Fury, hold the fury | Melville House Books. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

In truth, Faulkner never intended it to be quite so difficult. For the book’s famously confusing first section, which is narrated by the mentally disabled Benjy Compson and which jumps back and forth in time mid-paragraph or even mid-sentence, Faulkner wanted his publisher to print each narrative thread in a different color of ink. On learning this would be impossible, he wrote, “I’ll just have to save the idea until publishing grows up to it.”

Needless to say, publishing has grown up a bit in the intervening eighty-four years, anda new edition due out this summer from theFolio Society aims to fulfill Faulkner’s wishes.

The mystery of James Patterson…

… James Patterson's “Books”: A Novel Not by James Patterson, by Keir Graff | Booklist Online. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

RIP …

… Pierre Magnan - Telegraph.

Hmm …

… language goes on holiday: Wittgenstein on clarity. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I have been reading Norman Malcolm's memoir of Wittgenstein and also a election from Wittgenstein's notebooks. I certainly think the key statement cited is this: "Philosophy is not a subject but an activity." Though he functioned as a professor of philosophy, Wittgenstein does not seem to have confused being a professor of philosophy with being a philosopher. What impresses most about Wittgenstein is his peculiarity and his authenticity, and it is hard to conclude otherwise than that the peculiarity was a consequence of the authenticity.

How it is …

… Zealotry of Guerin: Drawing Hands (Escher).

Rap-enomics...

This is pretty funny …

… Richard Dawkins on The descent of Edward Wilson. (Hat tip, Dave Lull).

Then there’s the patrician hauteur with which Wilson ignores the very serious drubbing his Nature paper received. He doesn’t even mention those many critics: not a single, solitary sentence. Does he think his authority justifies going over the heads of experts and appealing directly to a popular audience, as if the professional controversy didn’t exist—as if acceptance of his (tiny) minority view were a done deal? “The beautiful theory [kin selection, see below] never worked well anyway, and now it has collapsed.” Yes it did and does work, and no it hasn’t collapsed. For Wilson not to acknowledge that he speaks for himself against the great majority of his professional colleagues is—it pains me to say this of a lifelong hero —an act of wanton arrogance.

Well, when it comes to "wanton arrogance" Dawkins sure knows what he's talking about, being pretty wantonly arrogant himself. Don't believe me? Well, then read The God Delusion and note all the self-congratulatory passages therein.

Lots of baggage …

… Ivebeenreadinglately: Bloomsbury.

Better late …

… than not at all, I guess: zmkc: Rip van Priestley.

A way of operating …

… The Art of Scientific Investigation (1957), Part I: The Role of Openness and Serendipity in Creativity and Discovery | Brain Pickings. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

"Successful scientists have often been people with wide interests. Their originality may have derived from their diverse knowledge … Originality often consists in linking up ideas whose connection was not previously suspected."

The pith of it …

… OGIC: Write a little. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Taking it in …

… Vladimir Nabokov — The University Poem — LRB 23 May 2012. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Good point …

… Anecdotal Evidence: `Ugliness Creates Individuality'.

Years ago, when we visited Stockbridge, Mass., it seemed so cutesy-pie as to be unreal. We felt nostalgic for South Philly grit.

Spyspeak …

… Paul Davis On Crime: A Q and A With Joseph C. Goulden, The Author of 'The Dictionary Of Espionage' And 'The Death Merchant'.

Quivering upper lip...

...Review: A smart and funny farewell to youthful idealism in the literary ‘The Common Pursuit’

Heroes …

… Joseph Brodsky and the courageous couple who brought him to America – Carl and Ellendea Proffer | The Book Haven.

Making the ordinary extraordinary …

… Ronald Blythe...: The task of a writer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Good luck …

… John McIntyre: Expect first drafts, quickly edited, after Denver Post eliminated copy desk | Poynter. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

For all the bitching you may hear about copy desks, everyone who works for a newspaper knows how important they can be in saving one's tuchas from time to time.

Soon at a theater near you …

… Bernard-Henri Lévy: Kerouac at the Cinema.

And then I finally learned, even later, much later, from Paul Bowles in Tangiers, that Kerouac, one day, had had enough of this book, he cursed it, he hated it. There are books like that, said Paul Bowles; for me it was The Sheltering Sky, for him, On the Road, books of life that, in becoming cults, turn into books of death. Magical books that ultimately weigh you down, crush you, suffocate your desire to go on writing and living; books that damn you, books as heavy as tombstones and that, in the final analysis, one can only die of -- this terrible "mortal shiver" his other friend, Allen Ginsberg, discerned in him towards the end.

The book that puts a writer on the map is often not his best. Tropic of Cancer is not Henry Miller's best book, and The Dharma Bums is better than On the Road.

Thought for the day …

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson, born on this date in 1803

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Neat site …

… Book Guys and Book Girls.

See also: Book Guys Show.

Q & A …

… KEEPER OF THE SNAILS: An Interview with Padgett Powell. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Let's not forget this …

… May 24, 1941: Birth of Robert Allen Zimmerman | Zenith City Online: Duluth history. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Endangered species …

… Entertainment - Sarah Fay - The Precarious State of the Literary Interview - The Atlantic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Have a look …

… In Focus - The American West, 150 Years Ago - The Atlantic.

Just remember: When you call me that, smile. (Does anyone remember the name of the Philadelphia author who coined that phrase?)

These were, of course — the whites at least — terrible people, not at all ecologically sound. Don't you miss them?

Something I missed …

Erik Satie was born on May 17, 1866. I should have posted this on May 17. Notice that, for all its hijinks, this is a deeply sad piece.

The future of newspapers?

… New digitally focused company launches this fall with beefed up online coverage; The Times-Picayune will move this fall to three printed papers a week | NOLA.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

The problem with newspapers is the backward vision of those in charge.

Nice guy …

… Great Moments in Journalism Fan Mail: When Elmore Leonard Likes Your Stuff | Observer.

Choose away …

… Which out-of-print book would you like to see republished? | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

My choice would be Oliver Lange's Pas de Deux. Or Lange's Next of Kin or The Land of the Long Shadow.

The joy of nerdiness …

… Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling with the Stars by Steven Rea: review - Telegraph.

To the rescue …

… Paul Davis On Crime: Literary Celebrities Fight To Save Home Of Sherlock Holmes Author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Word for word …

… Great Gatsby: a story for the modern age - Telegraph. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Most curious is a New York version, retitled GATZ, coming to London as part of the London International Festival of Theatre in June and July. The New York theatre group Elevator Repair Service has set the book in a drab office, where a worker finds a copy of the book and starts to read it out; his colleagues take on the roles and the action plays itself out. Remarkably, every single word is performed; it is not a long novel, but even short novels are longer than the longest plays, and this evening will last for eight hours.

A fabulous read …

… When Falls the Coliseum — Lisa reads The Professionals by Owen Laukkanen.

Missing the boat …

… Todd Gitlin Reviews Frederick Turner's "Renegade: Henry Miller And The Making Of Tropic Of Cancer" | The New Republic. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

I get the impression that Tropic of Cancer is the only Miller book Gitlin has read. That's bad enough. . Interesting, too, how much of this review is made up of quoted material, especially material from Orwell's 1940 essay. So I think I'll confine myself to one more quote from "Inside the Whale":

When I first opened Tropic of Cancer and saw that it was full of unprintable words, my immediate reaction was a refusal to be impressed. Most people's would be the same, I believe. Nevertheless, after a lapse of time the atmosphere of the book, besides innumerable details, seemed to linger in my memory in a peculiar way. A year later Miller's second book, Black Spring, was published. By this time Tropic of Cancer was much more vividly present in my mind than it had been when I first read it. My first feeling about Black Spring was that it showed a falling-off, and it is a fact that it has not the same unity as the other book. Yet after another year there were many passages in Black Spring that had also rooted themselves in my memory. Evidently these books are of the sort to leave a flavour behind them—books that 'create a world of their own', as the saying goes. … But now and again there appears a novel which opens up a new world not by revealing what is strange, but by revealing what is familiar. The truly remarkable thing about Ulysses, for instance, is the commonplaceness of its material. … Here is a whole world of stuff which you supposed to be of its nature incommunicable, and somebody has managed to communicate it. The effect is to break down, at any rate momentarily, the solitude in which the human being lives. When you read certain passages in Ulysses you feel that Joyce's mind and your mind are one, that he knows all about you though he has never heard your name, that there some world outside time and space in which you and he are together. And though he does not resemble Joyce in other ways, there is a touch of this quality in Henry Miller. Not everywhere, because his work is very uneven … But read him for five pages, ten pages, and you feel the peculiar relief that comes not so much from understanding as from being understood. 'He knows all about me,' you feel; 'he wrote this specially for me'. It is as though you could hear a voice speaking to you, a friendly American voice, with no humbug in it, no moral purpose, merely an implicit assumption that we are all alike. For the moment you have got away from the lies and simplifications, the stylized, marionette-like quality of ordinary fiction, even quite good fiction, and are dealing with the recognizable experiences of human beings.

I do not believe in political movements. I believe in personal movement, that movement of the soul when a man who looks at himself is so ashamed that he tries to make some sort of change — within himself, not on the outside.

— Joseph Brodsky, born on tis date in 1940

Originally published in 1993, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning (public library) explores what’s arguably the most important dimension of what it means to be human — our inherent imperfection — and the many ways in which we violate it daily, delivering a constellation of wisdom and practical insight on how to live in a way that

Nasty kids …

… Bad to the Bone: The Worst Children in Literature on AbeBooks.

Trend-spotter …

… Carl Van Vechten and the Harlem Renaissance | Morris Dickstein. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)

Only a few years earlier this dandified, eccentric writer, bisexual, bohemian, had grown “violently interested” in Negro culture and Harlem life, especially its night life, and had quickly gotten to know everyone there, from civil rights leaders like Du Bois, Johnson, and Walter White at the NAACP to upcoming young writers like Hughes, Countee Cullen, and Zora Neale Hurston. He led slumming visitors such as Somerset Maugham on exotic tours, cruised the streets and cabarets till dawn, and invited his new black friends to dazzling parties at his home on West 55th Street, breaking down social barriers at a time when New York was anything but an integrated city.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Monday, May 28, 2012

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Friday, May 25, 2012

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Wednesday, May 23, 2012