Month / February 2006

by Edward Champion

I Won’t Phone It In For You Folks

The day is shot, the schedule too impacted for a roundup or a post pulled from my matts. I’ll see you tomorrow. But in the meantime, as Ron and others have pointed out, the Gray Lady has reported some major book news: Sales of Flann O’Brien’s The Third Policeman are up after the book appeared on Lost.

I don’t have the Times‘ resources, but I just might be able to scoop the New York Times by reporting that J.T. Leroy is a fake, James Frey is a liar, and, to my great astonishment, Vollmann was nominated for the National Book Award (will he win?).

Besides, the biggest piece of news doesn’t involve books, but it depresses the hell out of me: Bush got re-elected! Who knew?

by Edward Champion

Antjie Krog: Plagiarist or Not Plagiarist?

Because fresh plagiarism charges seem to be unfurled more frequently than we replenish our own underwear drawer with scores of freshly laundered boxers (Is it too late to call 2006 the Year of the Plagiarist ?), the time has come for Return of the Reluctant to institute a new weekly feature: Plagiarist or Not Plagiarist ?

This Week’s Plagiarist : Antjie Krog

Source of Charges: Stephen Watson, writing in The New Contrast

Author’s Response to Plagiarism: “Stephen Watson in the annals of Plagiarism”

Work in Question: The Country of My Skull

Alleged Sources of Plagiarism: Multiple. Ted Hughes’ essay, “Myth and Education,” and two 19th century European linguists.

What the Publisher Says: Eve Gray at Random House: Only one phase strikingly similar, Krog’s book different in tone. Random House considering libel action against Watson.

by Edward Champion

Freedom’s Just Another Word for Nothing Left to Lose

An interesting exchange between Vollmann and Kate Braverman: “If freedom means anything, it’s about being repulsive as well as being able to do flower paintings. I believe that we have to focus on the other. I’m not saying pedophilia is right. But I imagined someone who would be, by our culture’s standards, the most vile and repulsive character, worse than Osama bin Laden. But let’s make him wise and a guide or bridge to the Queen. And it’s through somebody like that Tyler gains entrance to the Queen. He endures humiliation and insult from Dan Smooth. That’s the price he pays. In so many ways, this novel is about degradation. One of the questions I’ve often had is, when does self-actualization end and degradation begin? What does it really mean if we’re going to try to be ourselves? We don’t want to be conformists. We don’t want to follow social conventions, but how far do we want to take that?”

(Thanks, D!)

[UPDATE: Mr. Hogan has discovered the complete version of the interview.]

by Edward Champion

Oh, What Suckers You’ve Been!

One year ago today, I asked readers of edrants.com to become micropatrons and support my indolent lifestyle. I suggested to you that I would, in fact, be writing more. But what you didn’t know was that the $39,900 that you gave me would be spent on hookers and trips to exotic locales, and that this blog would in fact become less of a passion and more of a half-assed obligation. Not unlike that ship in a bottle I’ve been working on for the past five years.

Thanks in part to you readers, who, much to my amazement, foolishly ponied up the dough, I’ve received more blowjobs in the past 365 days than I had during the past 31 years. I was able to propose to my partner in crime, Wing Nut. I now have a manservant named Topei who I picked up in Southeast Asia. He polishes my shoes with his tongue. I’ve become accustomed to flogging him at random moments. I had no idea how much fun it is to beat an indigent manservant. If you make a six-figure salary, I highly recommend it. But thanks to you readers, I am now fully acquainted with the pleasures of the leisure class. And there’s no turning back.

And of course the blog here has become much worse. Several literary experts have appraised the content. They have personally assured me that the content here has fallen far below that of a Fleet Street hack.

I won’t be asking for donations again — in large part because I know that I can’t fool you twice. I’ve found another money-making scam to maintain my lifestyle. My (unstated) intention from the beginning was to approach this site as a startup. I remember those heady dot com days where you could draw out a baroque diagram on paper and get $3 million in venture capital.

Well, if anything, this great one year scam has proven that Web 2.0 isn’t just a myth. While I didn’t get $3 million, I did get some pretty good payola. What this demonstrates is that, with a decent Technorati rating, fools will happily part with their money and give it to you.

So thank you, dear readers! You’ve been inveterate fools and you’ve allowed me to live it up! I’ve seriously considered changing my last name to “Kottke.”

Now excuse me while I have Topei read me some Malcolm Gladwell while I beat him with my ARC of Steven Johnson’s Emergence.

by Edward Champion

Roundup/Update

  • Podbop: Enter your city and listen to MP3 snippets of bands touring in your town this week. (via Irregardless)
  • C. Max Magee, having now shifted to a more RSS-friendly home, offers a thoughtful take on the future of the book and gets a surprise response from George Saunders.
  • Robert “Prolfiic Is My Temperament, Prolific Is My Interviewing” Birnbaum talks with Andrew Delbanco.
  • Well, I guess Jessa Crispin hates such “desperate” works as James Joyce’s Ulysses, e.e. cummings’ No Thanks, Lord Byron’s early poems, Willa Cather’s One of Ours, Waltman’s Leaves of Grass, Thoreau’s Walden, Virginia Woolf’s early novels, and Strunk and White’s The Elements of Style (which was initially self-published).
  • Haven’t forgotten about the Black Swan Green discussion with Megan. It’s coming. The ball’s in my court. But there are many things currently going on. Hopefully, we’ll get up the copious correspondence next week.
  • I have a little under ten books to log for the 75 Book Challenge, including my long and long-delayed thoughts on Perlman’s Seven Types of Ambiguity. Again, spare moments, hopefully soon.
  • Segundo: Three podcasts to finalize, some very special authors (including one HUGE surprise!) coming in the upcoming weeks, including Jonathan Ames, who also got a chance to talk with Pinky’s Paperhaus when rolling through Los Angeles.
  • Nor have I forgotten about the Naughty Reading Photo Contest. I apologize to all the entrants for the delay.
  • Do you have any more coffee?