- I am now reading more books than you would believe one man could read. And I have only myself to blame. While things have not yet escalated to the point where exercising the espresso option on my coffeemaker becomes mandatory, they are certainly getting there. And if I start to cackle wildly in the forthcoming weeks or you see some balding man attempting to scale the side of the Grand Army Plaza arch in desperation, don’t say I didn’t warn you. In the meantime…
- Sacha Arnold considers The Three Paradoxes.
- Of all the astute pens for hire, why the hell did Tanenhaus opt for Rex Reed? But it is good to see Good Man Park make the cut.
- 318 different covers of War of the Worlds. (via Paul Collins)
- Edith Wharton in Esperanto.
- Here’s the problem with current literary journalism: “I’ve since read the book–and liked it a lot, it’s one of my favorite books of the year–and I must say I’m completely flummoxed by the apparently controversy that’s surrounded the book.” What is the point of talking with an author if one has not read the book in question? An extended conversation along these lines is useless for both author and audience if the interlocutor has not bothered to read the book in full. That Nissley remains “completely flummoxed” because he has not bothered to use his deficient noodle is not much of a surprise. Nor is it particularly earth-shattering to discover that his questions are more generic than Akiva Goldman’s best attempts at narrative. Is this cheap blanket advocacy an effort by Tom Nissley to cope for his clear shortcomings? Or could it be that the Amazon blog is about as journalistic as a golden globular quid pro quo afforded to the Hollywood Foreign Press Association? Here on the Internet, we have a great medium to deflect this sort of thing. And Nissley’s blown it because he prefers being a toothless tool.
- Sarvas on Shalom. McLemee on Mailer.
- If all goes according to plan, I hope to make my thoughts known about Judith Freeman’s The Long Embrace in a rather unusual manner. But for the moment, check out Richard Rayner’s review in the LATBR.
- Bob Hoover believes that “[s]uccess as a novelist is found between the pages, not the sheets.” But cannot success in the latter lead to success in the former? Or are stopperage-specific muses inherently worthless?
- Anita Thompson ain’t a fan of the Jann Wenner HST oral history. Apparently, Wenner took her out of the book because “she has an exaggerated sense of who she was in terms of Hunter. She had another kind of role.” Which leads one to wonder what Wenner perceives that role to be. Handmaiden perhaps? (via Likely Stories)
Author / Edward Champion
New Disclaimer from Deborah Solomon
The Deborah Solomon interview, recently revealed to be more of an inept collage experiment in which the interviewer is a humorless and badgering solipsist rather than anything close to a respectable journalist, now carry this bold shibboleth:
“Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Deborah Solomon.”
And if that isn’t enough, Solomon, who appears not to be a fan of the Oxford comma, will also begin adopting the bold moniker “sprezzatura” to stave off any additional criticism that comes from the New York Press or the blogosphere.
Rest easy, America! The Times has rectified the Solomon disgrace with one single sentence! Clearly, standards have been corrected and we can count upon the Times to treat this middle-aged white woman with the same hard circumspection that was once meted out to a twentysomething African-American named Jayson Blair, who did more or less the same thing. Alas, Blair was shown the door before he could get in a recurrent disclaimer. A double standard? Well, they don’t call the Times the Gray Lady for nothing.
Ripped Off by Matthew Rose and the Wall Street Journal
Matthew Rose has seen fit to write an article containing certain similarities to my own experiences with Facebook and, in fact, using the same Jonathan Franzen angle that I used here on September 26, 2007.
My lede: “Jonathan Franzen does not want to be my friend.”
Rose’s lede: “Is Jonathan Franzen my friend?”
Could such a similarity have been avoided? Well, enter the search terms “Jonathan Franzen Facebook” into Google and you shall see what comes up first.
Of course, Matthew Rose will deny it. But my post was the subject of some discussion — both in the blogosphere and on Facebook. I was the first to publicly out Franzen’s existence on Facebook. A friend of mine insisted that I write a feature article about the experience, but I told her that I honestly didn’t see any reason why any serious newspaper would be interested in my technological navel-gazing.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Open note to the Wall Street Journal: I happen to be a writer myself. And unlike Mr. Rose, I can actually generate original ideas.
Half-Life in 60 Seconds
BSS #153: Ursula Hegi
Condition of Mr. Segundo: Contemplating the worst thing he’s ever done.
Author: Ursula Hegi
Subjects Discussed: Collage artist protagonists and collage-inspired novels, stream of consciousness and italics, using specific fonts, Mason’s voice as a pulse, how Hegi communicated with typographers, the problems with emailing manuscripts, characters representing a contentious unified whole, subverting the nuclear family structure, the layers that come from writing 50+ drafts, gestures involving shoulder blades, why there are so many water environments in Hegi’s work, kayaks, William Faulkner’s building, on whether or not a novel is “absolutely right,” the origins of the name Mason, working on an intuitive level, planning through revision, ellipses and pauses, the introduction of a protester into the narrative, the Tribe of the Barefoot Women, nasty fortune cookies, the peace symbol and Mercedes-Benz, confusion in semiotics, Bush and Hitler comparisons, the curtailing of rights in contemporary America, how Hegi varies her stylistic vernaculars, being driven by writing, and being a “method writer.”
EXCERPT FROM SHOW:
Hegi: For example, to write from Annie’s point of view, I need to become Annie. To write from Opal’s point of view, I need to be nine years old. To write from Trudi Montag’s point of view in Stones from the River, I am her height. I feel her rage. I feel her bliss. I cannot write about feelings unless I go there with the characters. So sometimes I sit at my desk blushing, smiling, close to tears. But I do have to become each character. It’s like method acting.
Correspondent: Yeah. Interesting. Did you have any theatrical background?
Hegi: No. But I read about method acting when I was in my thirties. And I thought, “But that’s what I’ve been doing in my writing!”
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