What Binet has really written is a book about the obstacles to writing a novel about Heydrich—a record of all the reasons why this story does not need to be told, cannot be told, and should not be told. In a series of short numbered sections, Binet alternately narrates the life of Heydrich and the plot to assassinate him and speaks in his own voice, describing his own research methods, giving glimpses of his own personal life, and pointing out all the flaws in his own narration. The only way to overcome his doubts about the whole enterprise, Binet suggests, is to place them front and center.
Tuesday, May 08, 2012
Invention and truth …
… Adam Kirsch Reviews Laurent Binet's "HHhH: A Novel" | The New Republic.
Qualified yes …
… Book Review: Uncontrolled - WSJ.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
It's one thing, for instance, to conduct experiments, but it's another to learn from them. A company, Mr. Manzi says, "is an alliance of individuals, and there are always competing theories, power centers, and knowledge silos within any firm." Amid all the "jockeying for control," the most successful experiments are performed when the experimenters don't have a dog in any strategic fight.
RIP …
… Maurice Sendak, Children’s Author, Dies at 83 - NYTimes.com.
Dave Lull sends along this as well: Maurice Sendak, ‘Wild Things’ Author, Dies at 83.
Dave Lull sends along this as well: Maurice Sendak, ‘Wild Things’ Author, Dies at 83.
Thought for the day …
Love is a mutual self-giving which ends in self-recovery.
— Fulton J. Sheen, born on this date in 1895
Monday, May 07, 2012
What's it about?
… New Yorker Magazine; Fiction; Keywording | Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes.
Book reviewers who are trained to avoid all but the briefest sketch of plot summary know that talking about the storyline is a poor way to register enthusiasm about a book.
This makes me glad I'm not a trained book reviewer (whatever the hell that is). I think that's the fun of reviewing — telling the reader what the book is about without turning your review into a book report. You tell just enough to whet the reader's appetite.
'Dreadful' would be more apt …
… Book Review: A Difficult Woman - WSJ.com.
Ms. Kessler-Harris claims that American anti-communists waged campaigns "filled with hyperbole and outright lies." But it was the Stalinists, Hellman included, who made falsehood a core principle. Her penchant for fantastical tales prompted Mary McCarthy's acid comment that "every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.' " The story of Hellman's friendship with "Julia," an Austrian working in the anti-fascist resistance whom she supposedly assisted, was put forward in Hellman's memoir "Pentimento" (1973) and made into a Hollywood film. The story, it turned out, was cribbed from an acquaintance. (The film's director would later denounce Hellman as a "phony.")
How very sad …
… Evelyn Teachout, R.I.P.
When my mother died in 2000 I realized that when you lose your mother, no matter how old you are, no matter how old she was, you feel yourself to be an orphan. It is a terrible loss. I will be at church this evening and I will burn a candle for Mrs. Teachout. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her.
When my mother died in 2000 I realized that when you lose your mother, no matter how old you are, no matter how old she was, you feel yourself to be an orphan. It is a terrible loss. I will be at church this evening and I will burn a candle for Mrs. Teachout. Eternal rest grant unto her O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon her.
Cost and value …
… It doesn’t matter what e-books cost to make — Tech News and Analysis. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Q & A …
… Seven Things I Think I Think About Book Reviews | Mark Athitakis’ American Fiction Notes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
Inspiration is a guest that does not willingly visit the lazy.
— Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, born on this date in 1840
Sunday, May 06, 2012
Thought for the day …
The greatest sign of success for a teacher... is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist."
— Maria Montessori, who died on this date in 1952
Saturday, May 05, 2012
Hmm …
… Dr. Ben Carson’s Beliefs On Evolution Stir Controversy At Emory University — CBS Baltimore.
Maybe it's because you don't need the theory of evolution to be a successful neurosurgeon. In fact, you don't need the theory of evolution to do much science at all. Ask Richard Dawkins. He hasn't done any real science in decades.
Maybe it's because you don't need the theory of evolution to be a successful neurosurgeon. In fact, you don't need the theory of evolution to do much science at all. Ask Richard Dawkins. He hasn't done any real science in decades.
Odds and ends …
… OUPblog — Blog Archive — Writing and recording with scrapbooks. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Strengthening the voice …
… If You Walk In The Darkness - The Rumpus.net. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The Poems of Jesus Christ are excerpted from [Barnstone's] Restored New Testament, which Norton published in 2009. It is no secret that The King James Version of the Bible, thanks in part to its popularity and melodious sound, had an immense and ongoing effect on writers. For all its linguistic and musical influence (I am in love with that sound), it was written in paragraphs that obscure the shapes of the poetry of the original.
Discovery …
… Hidden Images Revealed on Elizabethan Map of America -- First Colony Foundation. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Thought for the day …
Faith is the highest passion in a human being. Many in every generation may not come that far, but none comes further.
— Søren Kierkegaard, born on this date in 1813
Friday, May 04, 2012
Who?
… The Millions : Lost in Translation: The Curious Obscurity of António Lobo Antunes. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Hmm …
… Marilynne Robinson: Why are we so afraid? - CSMonitor.com. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
That sounds a little Pharasaical itself. One could infer from it that "I'm always right and I never lie." We are obligated to say what we think is the truth. We have to be careful not to think that everything we say is the truth.
But I think she is right about the climate a fear, though for me it is the ongoing whining about technological change or hypothetical environmental disaster. As for the Great recession and the lukewarm recovery, it's easy for her to pooh-pooh those who have become fearful about their economic future: She's got a good income.
Another viewpoint: Why Marilynne Robinson, Narrative Calvinist, Doesn't Fear Fox News.
My question would be: Why would she fear Fox News in the first place? I don't. I don't fear CNN or MSNBC, either.
Post bumped.
Regarding Fox, case in point, from Glenn Reynolds: ANOTHER ONE DOWN.
Post bumped again.
When an audience member Friday morning pointed out that her speech “could have been ghost-written by Bill Moyers and aired on PBS,” and asked how she could have credibility among Fox News-watching conservative Christians, Robinson said, to audience applause: “I don't recognize any other obligation than to say what is true.”
That sounds a little Pharasaical itself. One could infer from it that "I'm always right and I never lie." We are obligated to say what we think is the truth. We have to be careful not to think that everything we say is the truth.
But I think she is right about the climate a fear, though for me it is the ongoing whining about technological change or hypothetical environmental disaster. As for the Great recession and the lukewarm recovery, it's easy for her to pooh-pooh those who have become fearful about their economic future: She's got a good income.
Another viewpoint: Why Marilynne Robinson, Narrative Calvinist, Doesn't Fear Fox News.
My question would be: Why would she fear Fox News in the first place? I don't. I don't fear CNN or MSNBC, either.
Post bumped.
Regarding Fox, case in point, from Glenn Reynolds: ANOTHER ONE DOWN.
Post bumped again.
Have a look …
This little video was done by a young man named Simon, who is one of the people who from time to time has instructed me at the Apple Store. About 50 seconds into it you'll get a glimpse of Shannon, who was my instructor this morning (though, truth to tell, we spent some time watching Colin Farrell making a movie across the street). Both Shannon and Simon have instructed me more than a few times, and — as has been the case with all of my young Apple instructors — it has always been for me a great experience. I plan to go on at length sometime soon about that, but for now I just wanted to post this video because I like these young people. I think they're immensely bright and talented, and it's my way of counteracting all the crap you often hear about the younger generation these days. Good God, you heard the same sort of stuff when I was a member of the younger generation — oh, wait …
Restless innovator …
… Edvard Munch: Beyond The Scream | Arts and Culture | Smithsonian Magazine.
Munch believed that a painter mustn't merely transcribe external reality but should record the impact a remembered scene had on his own sensibility. As demonstrated in a recent exhibition of self-portraits at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm and the Royal Academy of Arts in London, much of Munch's work can be seen as self-portraiture. Even for an artist, he was exceptionally narcissistic. "Munch's work is like a visual autobiography," McShine observes.
Not necessarily …
… Is There Such a Thing as Jewish Fiction? (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I would say there are writers of fiction who happen to be Jewish.
I would say there are writers of fiction who happen to be Jewish.
From Dave Lull …
Colm Toibin:
It is strange how much Larkin’s images of disillusion, fear, and self-betrayal have come to seem communal rather than personal, how the England he imagined—the drinking, the absences, the lost love, and the daily dread—have etched themselves into the general image of things. Thus many writers who dramatize English life have to tackle not only the substance of the world they inhabit or imagine, but the persistent shadows that Larkin left. While this has happened elsewhere—in Burns’s Scotland, for example, or Whitman’s America, or Yeats’s Ireland—it has come as a release, or a way of opening up the world. In the case of Larkin’s England, it comes with the sense of an ending, or, as he put it at the conclusion of “The Whitsun Weddings,” “somewhere becoming rain.”
Thought for the day …
The triumphs of the warrior are bounded by the narrow theater of his own age; but those of a Scott or a Shakespeare will be renewed with greater and greater luster in ages yet unborn, when the victorious chieftain shall be forgotten, or shall live only in the song of the minstrel and the page of the chronicler.
— William H. Prescott, born on this date in 1796
Thursday, May 03, 2012
A long slog …
… OUPblog — Blog Archive — The bizarre history of the Oxford Latin Dictionary. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Missing in action …
… Where are today's literary nomads? | Books | guardian.co.uk. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
I did my part. But that was years ago.
I did my part. But that was years ago.
Paraphrasable but irreducible …
… The Millions : The Poetry of Mental Unhealth: Philip Larkin. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
As often as not in Larkin, such moments of nearly visionary consciousness are as likely to be negative as positive, but his work is in fact full of intensely lyrical apprehensions that belie his reputation as a crusty conservative with no patience for the inexplicable or the numinous. The man who revered Margaret Thatcher, wrote weekly letters to his nagging mother, and vacationed in provincial British resorts like Sark, Malvern, and Chichester, had more poetry in his soul — perhaps that was his problem — than he knew what to do with.
Just how should I put that?
… Crappy First Drafts of Great Books | Psychology Today. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
In one place …
… Edward Feser: Rosenberg roundup. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
This sounds as if it is, in the long run, faith-based.
Rosenberg acknowledges that the implications in question are utterly bizarre, but maintains that they must be accepted because the case for the scientism that entails them is ironclad.
This sounds as if it is, in the long run, faith-based.
A gift to us all …
… Jon Will, 40 years and going with Down syndrome - The Washington Post. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Takedown …
… Hating America at the New York Times | FrontPage Magazine.
This kind of tired, apocalyptic, left-wing cant about America is straight out of Doctorow’s playbook. At the same time, I was surprised. Was he still at it? Really? Believe it or not, the guy’s been banging on like this for over half a century now. If for Ronald Reagan it was always morning in America, for E.L. Doctorow it’s always been dusk. Doesn’t he ever get tired, I mused, of pronouncing America dead?
Thought for the day …
Nobody is bored when he is trying to make something that is beautiful, or to discover something that is true.
— William Inge, born on this date in 1913
Wednesday, May 02, 2012
How much else is fabricated?
… Obama: 'New York girlfriend' was composite - POLITICO.com.
Has James Frey been invited to the White House lately?
Has James Frey been invited to the White House lately?
Drawing for fiction …
… Paris Review – Flannery O’Connor and the Habit of Art, Kelly Gerald. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
A postmodern enterprise
… Can Beauty Save the World?: Catholic World Report. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
The bulk of Beauty Will Save the World is a lavish consumer’s guide to the great poets, writers, and artists of the twentieth century Catholic Revival and beyond. In determining how to reinvigorate culture, the profiles of Evelyn Waugh, Wendell Berry, Mary McCleary, Gerhart Niemeyer, and Malcolm Muggeridge—to give only a sampling—along with hundreds of other references to western aesthetes, will give the thoughtful reader a great deal to chew on.I'm not sure about this: "the conservative resurgence that began in the 1950s was so focused on economics, politics, and diplomacy that its chief architects largely ignored culture, other than to malign the eccentricities of “modern” art and literature." I know what he means —there was a lot of plain reactionism among conservatives at the time, despite so many modernists being, in fact, conservative — but there were exceptions. Russell Kirk certainly focused on culture, to name just one.
Hmm …
… Boston Review — Marjorie Perloff: Poetry on the Brink. (Ht tip, Rus Bowden.)
I'm not sure the lyric needs to be reinvented. Writing good ones has always been enough. But I do think this poses problem: "The colleges and universities that offer graduate degrees in poetry employ about 1,800 faculty members to support the cause." Turning poetry into one more academic discipline just doesn't sound right to me.Somehow most poets in history have managed to pursue their art without getting a degree in it.
In case you wondered …
… Flavorwire — 10 Contemporary American Essayists You Should Be Reading Right Now.
Well, Robinson is an obvious choice, and I'm glad to see Sloane on the list. I knew her when she was a PR flack. Had some very pleasant chats with her in my office. Very bright young woman.
Well, Robinson is an obvious choice, and I'm glad to see Sloane on the list. I knew her when she was a PR flack. Had some very pleasant chats with her in my office. Very bright young woman.
Thought for the day …
It is in our faults and failings, not in our virtues, that we touch each other, and find sympathy. It is in our follies that we are one.
— Jerome K. Jerome, born on this date in 1859
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
Endangered species
… Why e-books will soon be obsolete (and no, it’s not just because of DRM) — Gyrovague. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
We shall see.
We shall see.
Who knew?
… PJ Lifestyle — 3 of Today’s Best Suspense Novelists Are MSM Journalists. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Interesting choices, I guess …
… The greatest films of all time - Roger Ebert's Journal. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
About the only one I agree with is Aguirre. I'd be tempted to go with 2001 A Space Odyssey, but while it's formally impressive, I don't think there's a lot of substance to it, actually. The absence of anything by Ingmar Bergman seems odd. I suppose I'd go with Winter Light. Most of the rest on Ebert's list — La dolce vita, Raging Bull, even Citizen Kane — I think are overrated. There's a Korean film of a couple years ago — Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter … and Spring — that would be on my list, and I would probably go with Kieslowski's Red. I also think that John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King is a well-nigh perfect film. But that's enough of this. Everyone has his own list.
Hmm ...
… The Millions : Are eReaders Really Green?
Of course, this is all premised on assumptions regarding the relation between increased CO2 and atmospheric warming. I'm pretty sure that the latest research indicates that the increase in CO2 follows the warming trend.
Anyway, what is the solution? If eReaders give off all those carbon emissions, what about all the other devices in use?
I'll stick with James Lovelock's original Gaia theory: The Earth is a self-regulating system that will take care of matters in its own way and in its own time. There is more than a little hubris involved in thinking that man is at one and the same time the principal threat to the Earth and its only possible savior.
Gaia knows, though, a day hardly goes by without someone raising a lamentation over one possible impending disaster or another.
Of course, this is all premised on assumptions regarding the relation between increased CO2 and atmospheric warming. I'm pretty sure that the latest research indicates that the increase in CO2 follows the warming trend.
Anyway, what is the solution? If eReaders give off all those carbon emissions, what about all the other devices in use?
I'll stick with James Lovelock's original Gaia theory: The Earth is a self-regulating system that will take care of matters in its own way and in its own time. There is more than a little hubris involved in thinking that man is at one and the same time the principal threat to the Earth and its only possible savior.
Gaia knows, though, a day hardly goes by without someone raising a lamentation over one possible impending disaster or another.
A dubious figure …
… The Smart Set: Shell' Game - April 24, 2012. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
… in the case of Shelley, I have to wonder if his life didn’t ultimately affect the quality of his work. This is not an idea that would have occurred to me when I first read this poet. In college and even in graduate school, one tended to take the word of one’s professors on faith and to find value where they told us it existed. But returning to Shelley now, I wonder if he’s as good as he’s cracked up to be. His shorter poems such as “Ode to the West Wind” and “Ozymandius” definitely carry some punch (the latter, an apt, if overblown, statement about how all greatness eventually falls to dust). But "Alastor," "Prometheus Unbound," and the unfinished "Triumph of Life" — I’m not so sure.
I'm with Paula on this. To be honest, I've never been much of a fan. A large chunk is Shelley is rhetoric, not poetry. He was more in love with ideas than with the stuff of life. Hence the profusion of abstract nouns Paula notes. As for his character, while you do not have to be a nice person to write good poetry, good poetry does not excuse not being a nice person. Shelley was not a nice person.
FYI …
… PJ Lifestyle — Talent Isn’t Everything: 5 Secrets to Freelance Success. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Good for her …
… Mary Beard: the classicist with the common touch | Observer profile | From the Observer | The Observer. (Hat tip, Dave Lull.)
Like many, I was appalled by what Mary had to say after 9/11, namely, that America had it coming. But people are not of a piece. And Mary is extremely good at her profession. Her book on the Roman triumph is necessary reading if you want to understand the ancient inhabitants of that city on the Tiber. As for Gill's remarks, they are best ignored.
Like many, I was appalled by what Mary had to say after 9/11, namely, that America had it coming. But people are not of a piece. And Mary is extremely good at her profession. Her book on the Roman triumph is necessary reading if you want to understand the ancient inhabitants of that city on the Tiber. As for Gill's remarks, they are best ignored.
Thought for the day …
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
— Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, born on this date in 1881
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