A new edition of The Quarterly Conversation is up, and it includes Garth Hallberg on James Wood (which features a handy flowchart of literary conflicts over the past decade), Scott on prison writing, Antoine Wilson on Remainder, among many other things. Check it out.
Author / Edward Champion
Also Unearthed: Rock and Roll Best Played When Loud
BBC: “They say rock and pop stars live life in the fast lane and now researchers have proved it. A Liverpool John Moores University study of 1,050 US and European artists found they are twice as likely to die early than the rest of the population.”
Samples and Covers
Second Hand Songs — a very helpful database for those interested in pop music antecedents.
Levi Asher on Kerouac
Levi Asher: “Why does it seem necessary to emulate Jack Kerouac’s travels in order to write about him? I’ve read much critical work on Joseph Conrad, but I’ve never yet heard a scholar claim to have first read Heart of Darkness while actually steaming up the Congo.”
I wish Levi had cited specifics about the professional critics who “still view Kerouac condescendingly when they praise him,” but I suspect he didn’t have enough space to go into detail. Overall though, it’s a nice piece, and I hope Levi expands his considerable thoughts on Kerouac elsewhere.
And You, Michiko, Are Ostensibly a Literary Critic, Not a Sleazy Hollywood Producer Pitching to Executives
Michiko Kaukutani: “Junot Díaz’s “Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” is a wondrous, not-so-brief first novel that is so original it can only be described as Mario Vargas Llosa meets ‘Star Trek’ meets David Foster Wallace meets Kanye West. “