The ever-thoughtful author of We Need to Talk About Kevin weighs in:
I would far prefer that this new killer remained anonymous. Were all such culprits to remain utterly and eternally unknown, the chips on their shoulders interred with their bones, their grudges for ever private, surely the frequency of these grotesquely gratuitous sprees would plummet. One of the driving forces for most of these killers is not just to be noticed, but, however perversely, to be understood.
(via Sarah)
Critical Mass has word of the Atlanta Journal Constitution firing Teresa Weaver as book editor. John Freeman urges all concerned parties to write to editor John Wallace (jwallace@ajc.com) and publisher John Mellott (jmellott@ajc.com).
It turns out that Ed Falco was one of Cho Seung-Hui’s teachers. Here’s the most fascinating section:
Nikki Giovanni, a well-known poet who was also one of Cho’s teachers, found his writing so “weird” and “intimidating” that she had him removed from her class in the fall of 2005. But Falco tried a different approach. Asked why he thought Cho became an English major, Falco offered what he called a guess.
“The kid couldn’t speak. I did everything I knew to draw him out. I tried to joke with him. I touched his shoulder while asking him a direct question. I put myself in quiet, one-on-one space with him — and I still could not get articulate speech out of him.
“Yet, in writing he could communicate. You’ve seen the plays. They’re not good writing. But they are at least a form of communication. And in his responses to the other students’ plays, he could be quite articulate. If writing is the only way you can communicate with the wider world, then I guess being an English major makes sense.”
(Thanks, Jeff)
Many names, including George Bush (while Texas governor) and Jerry Lewis’s recommendation of The Fountainhead: “It’s a very profound book…Makes you think!” Somehow I’m not surprised that John Tesh’s favorite book is Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel.