It looks like the Mystery Writers of America share the SFWA’s troubling inability to understand that we’re now in the 21st century. Sarah has distressing news about the Edgars. The MWA, perhaps jittery because of Stephen King’s appearance, has pronounced that “cell phones, cameras and all other electronic devices” must be turned off in order to prevent certain attendees from live blogging the proceedings. I’ve never heard of such a preposterous embargo, which runs counter to the spirit of celebrating mystery writers, who I’m sure must be miffed to here that hubristic forces wish to enable their achievements to be disseminated across the Internet in real time. I’d suggest to all Edgar attendees to live blog anyway and let the spirit of samizdat reign under tablecloths.
And speaking of hubris against online expression, Michael Dirda has just equated litblogging to “shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity.” And that’s not all. “Playgrounds, as we all remember, are ruled by bullies, loud-mouths and prima-donnas.” Well, so long as you’re using ad hominem instead of specific examples, Mr. Dirda, I think you’ve proven that vulgarity is actually more your forte. After all, “literary and artsy gossip is always welcome” and Leo Lerman’s journals are “full of delicious anecdotes about shallow, venal, power-mad, sex-crazed and often unlikable people” (compare Dirda’s review with this decidedly less gossipy coverage from Liesl Schillinger). Yup. That’s really the stuff that makes thoughtful book review sections. Fortunately, aside from Dirda’s Wieseltieresque preening, Washington Post Book World remains a first-class publication well worth your time and certainly worth saving.
I can absolutely assure readers that A.M. Homes is funny. Callie has more.
In similar cost-cutting news, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinelwill no longer be delivering papers to delivery boxes. This is the first phase of the “Go to the Store and Get Your Own Damn Paper, You Lazy Bastard!” program that some newspapers plan to roll out in 2007.
The Eisner Award nominations have been announced, and one of the delightful surprises is Bob Burden’s extremely surreal work for the Gumby comic, which includes (in Issue #2) the spirit of Johnny Cash as a deus ex machina. I talked with the Gumby people during my APE coverage, following up on my conversation with them last year. Do stay tuned for more. Let’s just say that Mr. Burden is quite a loose cannon.
The Complete Review tracks literary coverage in The New Republic, and the results are not good for fiction: “But what is remarkable and disturbing is that coverage is predominantly — indeed, overwhelmingly — non-fiction focussed. The closest we get to fiction-coverage is now a review of Dave Eggers’ new book — subtitled an ‘Autobiography’, and even more obviously based on facts than most fiction. Is it Sam Tanenhaus’ influence on Wieseltier, rubbing off in all the wrong ways? Or a misguided attempt to be taken more seriously? Or just a brief bad streak?”
The NBCC has instituted a petition to save literary coverage at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Rather interestingly, my own signature has turned up as #666. But do help to get this in the four digits if you have a few spare minutes.
Ed Park’s first science fiction column for the Los Angeles Times is now up. And, unlike certain uneducated columnists named Dave on the East Coast, he clearly knows the genre. His first column focuses in part on the underrated Brian Aldiss.
There’s no mention of the Agony Column, Pinky’s Paperhaus, Nextbook’s interesting offerings, or many other great literary podcasts, but if you’re looking for safe, corporate-subsidized podcasts that take no chances, you can do no better than the list from Open Culture.
My response to Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur is now at 2,500 words, and I still have considerably more to address. Rest assured, it will be unleashed before the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
I’m very excited to be covering Alternative Press Expo tomorrow, where I will likely be spending far too much money. If you have comics, particularly strange or unusual ones, to talk about, look for the balding guy wandering the Concourse with the microphone. The results will appear, as last year, in a series of forthcoming Segundo podcasts.
If you thought that Will Self’s New York Times walk-a-thon was strange, New York Magazine has upped the fey ante by following Marisha Pessl as she loads up on coffee and cupcakes. It’s good to know that when it comes to literary writers, today’s media will devote considerable column inches not to the books in question, but what they do with their bodies. What next? A 2,000 word article on Zadie Smith and Z.Z. Packer bicycling cross-country?
John Freeman writes: “How, after all, could one review ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ without commenting upon the novel’s deeply humanistic vision? How will critics talk about former NBCC winner Jim Crace’s upcoming apocalyptic novel ‘The Pesthouse’ (which is set in America) without engaging with the very real political undercurrents caused by his flip-flopping of our greatest migration myths (having people trying to leave the country, rather than enter it)? How does one review a book like William T. Vollmann’s ‘Poor People’ without pausing for more than an aside to marvel how infrequently this population winds up in a book at all?” Well, it’s very simple. In Vollmann’s case, you observe the level of scholarship and the degree to which the book succeeds or fails at personal journalism. In the case of the two novels, you remark upon how thematically effective the narrative is. This has very little to do with politics, although I can see how a politically conscious reader might pick up certain connections. China Miéville and I recently had an interesting conversation about how an author’s imagination does, in fact, dwell outside of his political sensibilities. In Miéville’s case, the monsters that Miéville creates have nothing to do with his Marxist leanings.
Accordingly, since John Freeman seems to see politics in everything, I hereby challenge Mr. Freeman to a public debate in New York on this very issue, where I will duly demonstrate to Mr. Freeman that an open-minded reader can, in fact, read, write, and assess literature irrespective of politics.
I’ve hit the 25K mark in my novel, but there’s no way in hell that I’m feeling smug about it. No, ma’am. I’m fully aware that the manuscript could sabotage me at an unexpected moment, or the unruly words could stage a revolt upon my consciousness, or the characters might decide that the thoughts and feelings they’ve been nice enough to reveal to me are now off limits. No, humility and a work ethic is the only way to keep going on this. And for all I know, the novel may suck ass.
sprezzatura on Eggers: “Dave Eggers the person is all right with me. Dave Eggers the writer is another story. The very distinction, you feel, would exasperate Eggers, since he has staked his creative life on an identification of decent living with good writing. The conviction that good-intentioned people necessarily make good art is what lies behind the hectic innovative blurring of fact and fiction in Eggers’s work, and in the work of the writers he publishes.”