Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Justine Larbaleister has some good suggestions for oversensitive writers.
  • Time Out London lists the top ten children’s books of 2006.
  • This morning, when I woke up and heard that Gerald Ford had died and the wind was pattering against my window like something out of a TV disaster movie done on the cheap, I had to call my girlfriend to determine if I was, in fact, operating in reality and not living out some phantasmagorical dream. For several hours, I believed this. But now that I’ve read this item about an “edgy parenting magazine,” I must conclude that either today is preternaturally strange or I am not, in fact, now in the real world. If there’s a doctor out there who might be able to take my pulse during my lunch hour, please let me know.
  • Apparently, literary criticism is “cognitive freedom.” If this is the case, I will write my next review assignment in Edward Lear-style nonsense verse and tell my editor that it was because Geoffrey Galt Harpham told me so.
  • Jay McInerney is apparently “a boldface name.” Whether this is because McInerney is fond of repeated emphasis of his oenophilia or because his craggy and embarrassing visage still insists that he’s the center of the universe is anybody’s guess.
  • Not the “nudie calendar” you’re thinking.
  • Schezee Zadi asks the world to remember Urdu poet Perveen Shakir.
  • John Heath-Stubbs, the poet who translated the only literary work by a woman from ancient Rome to English, has passed away.
  • The Los Angeles Times‘ Josh Getlin suggests that works from Debra Ginsberg and Bridie Clark might represent the next Devil Wears Prada. So let me get this straight: Prada is the new litmus test for confessional fiction? What of Thomas Wolfe or Sinclair Lewis? They both came decades before Lauren Weisberger and it’s safe to say that they both wrote Weisberger under the table. Hell, in Lewis’s case, he wrote much of his fiction while he was under the table.
  • The Independent‘s DJ Taylor offers a second look at Richard Bradford’s The Novel Now. You can check out an excerpt of Bradford’s book here.
  • Does Pynchon fill in enough literary gaps?
  • Otto Penzler: “This is a good time of year to allow yourself to hate someone.” No wonder he’s such a bitter assclown. How does it work for Otto, I wonder? If he hugs you after you give him a gift, does he tear a hunk of meat from your shoulder with his teeth and then stab you in the chest multiple times with an icepick? (via The Dizzies)
  • I agree with Tayari. Dreamgirls is worth your time.
  • McClatchy has sold off the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
  • Yet a third layout of David Foster Wallace’s “Host” has made its way onto the Columbia University Press site. It’s an improvement upon the version that appeared in Consider the Lobster, but it still pales in comparison to the color-coded version that ultimately appeared in the Atlantic. But I suspect that CUP’s version is a bit easier on the eyes for those who remain bemused. (via Beatrice)
by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Michael Gove digs up the obligatory article about David Lodge’s “Humiliation,” the game whereby each participant admits what they haven’t read. He confesses that he hadn’t read Stephen King until he read Lisey’s Story, which he describes as “more painful for me than being trapped alone in one of the pods of the London Eye with a flatulent Appalachian mountain man anxious to re-enact a scene from Deliverance above the flowing waters of the Thames.” I didn’t care for Lisey either, but I don’t know if it’s fair to castigate a writer, particularly a prolific one, for a misfire.
  • Fascinating details on George Bernard Shaw’s last will and testament.
  • Anne Petty: “A case in point is the third Harry Potter film directed by Alfonso Cuarón. In that film, the familiar setting for Hogwarts was replaced by an incredibly precipitous landscape, especially the approach and immediate surroundings of Hagrid’s hut, and the interior for the school we thought we knew so well emerged in highly disorienting camera angles with ”House of Usher” look and feel. The effect was so distracting that I found it hard to lose myself in the flow of events on the screen.” Just keep ordering those lima beans from the menu, Anne. I hear they go great with castor oil. Leave the appreciation (and concomitant commentary) of cultural innovation to those willing to swim in the deep end or, better yet, those who still have a pulse.
  • Christ, some madman has released The Match Game to DVD. And it’s a four-disc collection no doubt full of the grand sleaze I didn’t come to appreciate (although I’m not sure if “appreciate” is the word) until decades later.
  • Alas, the Christmas season can’t save indie bookstores.
  • More FBI documents on John Lennon have been released.
  • 2006: the coldest year in the last five years. (via Books Inq.)
  • Chasing Ray takes umbrage with the Underrated Writers Project, noting that YA authors were not present. I fully confess that I’m quite in the dark on YA titles, but certainly not adverse to them. If anybody has some good YA author recommendations, do list them here.
  • Call me a skeptic, but am I the only one who sees through the blatant marketing of offering John Hodgman’s book on iTunes for free? You’ll get no link from me. No download either. Of course, if it came from a conduit outside iTunes, that might be another story.
  • Who knew that Jason Boog was a closet boxer who liked to knock the wind out of unfairly matched opponents who criticized his work?
  • The sublime Mr. Parr regularly underestimates himself. To wit: this very helpful guide to New York indie bookstores, quietly updated. (via The Written Nerd)
  • William Frith: Victorian hypocrite?
  • “What gives the school the right to decide when children should know the truth about such a harmless matter when knowing the truth does take away that little bit of magic?” What gives this mother the assumption that her kid still won’t believe in Santa, despite all claims to the contrary? (via Bryan Appleyard)
  • Various notables offer thoughts on Woody Allen’s movies. (via Quiet Bubble)
  • Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel lecture.
by Edward Champion

Roundup on the Rebound

  • Conflicts of interest? Reviewing a friend’s book? That’s small-time reviewing ethics compared to Kristian Lundberg, who fabricated a review for a book that was never completed. (via TEV)
  • Bookstores may be dancing a precarious waltz in New York and San Francisco, but at least there’s sign of a bookstore comeback in Kashmir.
  • “In every case, the expectations by faculty of what they believe college freshmen should have read in high school exceeds the reality of what they’ve actually read.” So college freshmen aren’t reading. On the plus side, they’re more likely to eat and drink your ass under the table and fuck each other like rabbits (some 80% of them). I propose a nationally subsidized “Books for Sex” program, whereby the number of books read correllates with the number of sexual partners a college freshman is permitted. After all, if we’re so busy tracking who buys Sudafed (and when), the least we can do is track their sex and reading habits too. Consider this a more benign form of Orwell. Orwell had his Vestal Virgins. 21st century America has CRIS (Carnal Reading Incentive Squad)!
  • Pottery containing literary messages have been found in northwest Iran. One of the shards, all dating around 3,000 BC, contained the following message: “Our homeland’s going to be royally fucked in about 5,000 years.” There was also a shard containing a list of clothes to be picked up at Great Zab Cleaners, a river-side launderer. (It turns out that the first dry cleaner was Iranian.)
  • Michael Gartner writes, “There is no better American essayist than E.B. White. Period. Some writers can write well but not think clearly. Some writers can think clearly but not write well. Some can do neither. White did both.” Meanwhile, some book critics aren’t nearly as succinct as they think they are. Couldn’t Gartner have simply written “E.B. WHITE IS THE SHIT, MOTHERFUCKERS!” or are such declarations of this ilk, which cut to the chase in one sentence iinstead of five, not permitted in newspapers?
  • The Yemen Times is under the silly illusion that dictatorial op-ed pieces are the way to get people reading and understanding. Ever hear of free will?
  • The current literary Jonathans cabal shouldn’t get too comfortable. Another Jonathan has been honored by the French.
  • Murakami believes that The Great Gasby is “the most important novel in my life.”
  • Carolyn Kellogg lists the top ten things she misses about L.A.
  • Ursula K. Le Guin on the importance of fantasy.
  • Jeff on Barbera’s death.
  • Jeffrey Trachtenberg on the new $0 advance. (via Maud)
by Edward Champion

More Tidbits

by Edward Champion

Roundup, Raw Hide

  • There are two schools of getting babies to sleep: the Ayn Rand “let them cry to their hearts’ content” doctrine and subscribing to the soothing touchy-feely Oprah approach. As it turns out, both schools are correct. So it seems when it comes to babies at least, conservatives and liberals can find a common ground. Of course, since many politicians are enfants terrible, at least when judged against the manner the average population works, it remains to be seen whether the approaching session of Congress will come to similar accord in other matters. (via Amardeep Singh)
  • Michael Richards, Andy Dick, and now Rosie O’Donnell. I’m wondering what’s more offensive: the lousy attempts at humor or the political correctness that demands incessant apologies.
  • Slow news day? Okay. World’s tallest man saves dolphin. So long and thanks for all the inch. (via The Beat)
  • Taking pages from the Bookslut and Edrants playbook, Bookburger lists the best and worst book covers of 2006.
  • Jenny D has a delightful 2006 books list.
  • Over at The Washington Post, Richard Ford participated in an online chat. Even Ford fanboy Tod Goldberg gets name-checked. But I liked Ford’s answer to the wholly ridiculous question “Why do you write?” (via The Millions)
  • Who knew that science fiction was all about whether or not the reader is an attractive woman? Apparently, an assclown named Razib, perhaps pining for the gender gap so prominent during the Eisenhower administration, was shocked (shocked!) that “a very attractive hostess” in a wine bar had read Hyperion and Snow Crash. If we are to use the terms of Razib’s argument, one must then ask why a brown-skinned man like Razib was doing in a wine bar, clearly the exclusive province of Caucasians! I know this, because Ann Coulter told me that racist antebellum times represented “a chivalric, honor-based culture that was driven down by the brute force of crass Yankee capitalism.” I therefore must believe her when she says that this is so! And we all know that the Confederacy meant rewarding the true winner: the glorious white male! So what business does Razib have drinking wine among the elite? It lacks honor and chivalry and respect for the white man. I’m shocked (shocked!) that any brown-skinned man would be doing this. Am I a freak to think this is freaky? I haven’t had a sip of wine, so it isn’t the alcohol. Guess it has to be my specious and outdated logic! (via Gwenda)

[UPDATE: Razib, lacking any sense of irony, has responded, calling me a “white racist” and adding, “I suppose Ed’s point was that stereotyping is pernicious, but I would contend that inaccurate stereotyping is especially pernicious, and I can’t believe that the snippet above reflects anything but rhetoric.” I figured the Ann Coulter reference would say it all, but Razib clearly hasn’t considered that I was actually satirizing inaccurate stereotyping: the same inaccurate stereotyping that Razib himself is guilty of.]