A Slightly More Pellucid Roundup
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under Roundup
- I have been apprised that the DSL man is coming tomorrow. The current roundup malaise, which is ever so slight, involves a great deal of my possessions in disarray. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to apply more wit, even though the shaky connection may very well result in an inadvertent capitulation of what I am trying to type.
- I see that the Chicago Tribune has shown some good sense by employing one Lizzie Skurnick to limn S.E. Hinton’s oeuvre, sans Michiko’s ungainly verb, while another Lizzie, who answers to the title of books editor, interviews Ms. Hinton as well. However, one very important question has been elided from Ms. Taylor’s queries: What does Ms. Hinton think of Brian Atene’s performance?
- A number of bloggers are now tackling Anne of Green Gables. I had no idea that an annotated version existed!
- Pinky tempts with this picture of Michael Silverblatt. There are important questions here: Was there audio? What occurred during the inevitable conversation? I understand that there have been many run-ins between a certain Silverblatt impersonator by the name of Tod Goldberg and Mr. Silverblatt himself, but none have been memorialized in audio form. The least one demands from such a meeting of the minds is documentary evidence. Future scholars must know just how much the KCRW vernacular infringes upon the real-life Silverblatt. And if Ms. Kellogg reneged on this historical obligation (as did Mr. Fox with his BEA videos?), then a gross journalistic injustice has almost certainly been committed.
- Are BBC stars being paid too much? In the interests of self-preservation, leave it to BBC News to set the record straight. “You recently got married. When did you get married?” “Do you think it’s better than the last series?” That’s right! Such penetrating journalistic insight can be yours for £6 million/year. For the price of Jonathan Ross’s three-year salary, you could feed a great number of homeless people. I would contend that if you were to remove Jonathan Ross from television, the chances are almost certain that very few would notice his absence. Six million sandwiches in one year would make a bigger impact on the landscape than a year’s worth of Jonathan Ross’s insipid questions.
- Bob Hoover contends that there’s nothing to get excited about at BEA this year. He suggests that there isn’t a single buzz book — “no frontrunner for the eagerly anticipated novel or sensational memoir.” I must presume that Bob Hoover is no fan of Bolano.
- Word has at long last leaked out about David Ulin’s clones. In fact, there are at least six Ulins that I know of. One was actually in Brooklyn over the weekend, helping me move. Another was at a Burbank studio, serving on the panel for the prospective reality television pilot “America’s Next Book Critic.” This leaves two more Ulins that have yet to be accounted for, although a few embarrassing photos have been uploaded to Flickr. What I do know is that Ronald D. Moore was so inspired by the many Ulins that a pivotal storyline in Battlestar Galactica’s fourth season was drawn from these developments.
- Writers suggest books to various presidential candidates. (via Maud)
- YA authors are now demanding seven figure advances. There are even a few unreported requests for manservants, underground seraglios, helper monkeys, football stadium-sized swimming pools for the summer, and only the finest cocaine. These YA authors are not only determined to become very rich, but they hope to flaunt their avarice with all the eclat of a sportscar driving through Detroit. (via Gwenda)
Comments
One Response to “A Slightly More Pellucid Roundup”
Leave a Reply
Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
I was at that same party as Mark Sarvas. We also remarked upon the Ulin clone, as did several other people. “Dude, I’ve looked over at that guy four times and only now realized he’s not David Ulin. That is uncanny.” etc.
There was no one Buzz Book, but I anticipate the hot topic for 2009 fiction will be witches. Two Salem Witch Trial themed novels were announced at the Editor’s Buzz panel. I’ve already forgotten everything about them. But expect that your mom and her book club friends will be all into witches next year, juts like they were all into geishas a couple years back.