Category / Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup from No Particular Declivity

* — It is my hope to introduce “Blanchettlicious” into common vernacular. The term signifies someone “exuding smart and sexy” and I’m hoping it can replace such general monosyllabic terms such as “hot” that fail to do justice to the sublime complexities of women.

by Edward Champion

The “It’s Getting Close to Xmas and My Corpus Wanes” Roundup

  • OGIC on Aguirre: The Wrath of God.
  • The Australian‘s book coverage ain’t bad these days. Recently, they enlisted a number of writers to mention what they’re currently reading.
  • Book critics are rated at Time Out. I’ll go further than my colleague Scott Esposito and suggest that any list which seriously considers Michiko Kakutani’s venomous tirades and Janet Maslin’s “Well, good golly, I read a book this summer!” reviews is worthless. And where, pray tell, is James Wood?
  • It appears Malcolm Gladwell has follicle competition from Chris Eaton Georges Perec. Aside from this pedantic and wholly unnecessary observation, Eaton appears to be a writer to check out.
  • Jack Shafer and Amardeep Singh offer contrarian views on the McEwan/Andrews flap.
  • john-hughes.jpgIs there any real reason to revisit Home Alone? Bad enough that this treacly nonsense launched the career of Macaulay Culkin and gave that sentimental hack Chris Columbus a second wind, steering him into the wholesale corruption of Harry Potter. But Home Alone also signified screenwriter John Hughes’ total capitulation into commercial family film fare of the lowest common denominator. Look at the list of films Hughes wrote after Home Alone: Beethoven (under a pseudonym), Dennis the Menace, Baby’s Day Out, and remakes of Miracle on 34th Street, 101 Dalmatians and Flubber. All of these scripts came from a man who desired a summer retreat at Nassau more than a desire to entertain. Imagine a parallel universe in which John Hughes continued writing comedies along the lines of Planes, Trains & Automobiles and the underrated She’s Having a Baby, not letting the lackluster reception of She’s Having a Baby get in the way. Hughes, dare I say it, could have been a fiercely independent populist. But he opted out. And it’s no surprise that Kevin Smith filled in the gap.
  • The year’s most notable newspaper corrections.
  • Editor & Publisher compares the NYT and Post responses to Pinochet’s death.
  • Sacha Baron Cohen as Best Actor? The critics in my town are often a bit batty, but this choice is a bit silly in a year that featured Ryan Gosling in Half Nelson.
  • Who knew that Mary Todd Lincoln’s cake holds all the answers for historical novelists?
  • In a perfect universe, Jonathan Ames, George Saunders, and Lydia Millet would be writing episodes for a groundbreaking Comedy Central series, drawing larger audiences to their often hilarious bodies of work. But since we live in a cruel and unfair universe where the spoils often go to no-talent, misogynist thugs, it is, of course, Tucker Max who yields the glory. (via Slushpile)
  • Michael Moorcock on Against the Day. (via The Dizzies)
  • Overrated and underrated books of the year. Which brings up another point. There was considerable excitement about David Mitchell’s Black Swan Green early this year, but it appears that the end-of-the-year listmakers have forgotten about it. What happened? Or are the critics’ memories too fickle? The only lists I’ve seen BSG on are Mr. Sarvas’ and Mr. Orthofer’s.
  • Aw man. Peter Boyle has died.
  • Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But I’m a big fan of the brass balls cultural declaration. Spencer Somers believes that “Sufjan Stevens is the closest thing this generation has to a Brian Wilson.” (via LHB)
by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • David Lynch is launching his own coffee. (via Matthew Tiffany)
  • Mr. Asher also doesn’t think too highly of Donadio’s most recent article, suggesting that Donadio “is just writing like Snoopy in his ‘dark and stormy night’ mode.” I agree with him that Ozick’s article is well worth your time.
  • Jack Butler, whose Jujitsu for Christ you must check out (thank you kindly, Rake and Carrie), offers this tribute to Don Harrington. Word on the street is that Butler’s got another novel in the works, but I haven’t yet had the opportunity to confirm this info. (via Pretty Fakes)
  • It seems that Mel the Anti-Semite is ripping off Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. (via Gwenda)
  • Salon lists the best debuts of 2006. The big question: Will the Pessl haters, who have been showing up at Mark’s place in droves, now call for Laura Miller’s head? Love or hate Special Topics, I fail to understand the knee-jerk dismissals associated with this book. Many literary folks, including Meghan O’Rourke, seem more content to resort to generalizations (Highly self-conscious prose? What writer doesn’t write self-consciously?), hating this book without citing specific examples. Yet to appear from these apparent detractors: detailed or level-headed assessments on why Marisha Pessl is apparently this year’s literary Beezelbub. So the book was written by a hot young talent and received a lucrative advance. So the book was selected by the NYTBR as one of the Top 10 Books of the Year. I don’t see what any of these factors have anything to do with considering the book’s merits or lack thereof (witness Gawker’s superficial dismissal, for example), but I suspect the early wave of Pessl pecking (or perception thereof) spawned this completely unnecessary turbulence. Is a novelist, by dint of her gender, not permitted to pursue a novel of ideas in the 21st century?
  • Chunkster Challenge? I’m reading two books over 700 pages simultaneously right now. 400 pages? 400 pages? I’ll see your 400 pages and raise you 200 more! You want a challenge? I unearth the Super-Chunkster Challenge: at least four books over 600 pages between the time period of Jan. 1 and June 30, 2007! And I’ll do this in tandem with any additional reading challenges sure to crop up during the next year. More details to come.
  • Behold: WKRP on DVD.
by Edward Champion

Roundup

by Edward Champion

Roundup