Eight authors reveal how they write. (WITH PEN, WITH TYPEWRITER, WITH WORD PROCESSOR WOW! CAN THEY HONE WORDS?) (via Booksquare)
Scott Esposito has a very thoughtful column on book reviews. He suggests that reviewers shouldn’t be in the business of making any good/bad pronouncements at all. I think Scott hits upon part of the problem of many reviewers, in that they go in for the big kill rather than trying to understand why other critics and readers appreciate a particular author. Reviewers often fail to be doubting Thomases or sometimes neglect to cast light on a bad book’s good points (or a good book’s bad points). I would add that any good review should not just be about where one can place a book, but about a reviewer trying to commingle her subjective views with those presented by the author, ideally citing specific examples from the book (which seems a lost art these days) and without the reviewer drawing too much attention to herself. (BAD ED! THIS PARA NO MAKE SENSE! TRY TO ARTICULATE THINGS AFTER YOU HAVE SLEPT! BUT YES, SCOTT ESPOSITO’S COLUMN IS GOOOOOOOOOD!!!!!)
James Tata examines Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby and asks if its grisly horrors are all that dissimilar from The Pianist. (ME WANT BLOODY POLANSKI MOVIE RIGHT NOW! SO SATISFYING HIS TWISTED CINEMATIC VISION!)
Stephen Metcalf prosecutes against Charles Frazier. (STEPHEN METCALF IS WORST REVIEWER OF HIS GENERATION? YOU MAKE CALL. ME IGNORE FRAZIER. BIG PYNCHON BOOK ON WAY!!!!) (via Rake)
I wish I could be in New York this weekend for this, if only to see how similar (or dissimilar) the array of views are.
Kevin Smokler complains that The Paris Review costs $12 and that this is an inflated price to pay if you’re only looking for the interview. You know, my copy of McSweeney’s #19 was $22 and all I really wanted was a Pepsi the T.C. Boyle novella (the leftover “novel” that Dana was working on in Talk Talk that wasn’t published). That I had to hunt for this in a cigar box containing ancillary illustrations was bad enough, but several of the other stories I read, particularly that mediocre pirate story, were DOA. So the argument cuts both ways. Do I bemoan McSweeney’s for charging this price or for offering a bad selection this time around? Not at all. Having once worked at a magazine and having lengthy conversations with the printing folks, I realize that printing in color is expensive. Methinks Mr. Smokler doth protest too much.
And while we’re on the subject of “what the New Generation wants,” since whenis it “hip” to like Spiotta, Danielewski, and Powers? I’m troubled by the notion that one’s literary sensibilities are defined not so much by what one personally responds to, but by whether one is connected to some unknown inner circle or lofty organization. Should not a person read Danielewski because he is innately curious and not because it is the apparent thing to do? Further, who is anybody to determine “what the New Generation wants?” This presumes that writing, editing, and reading involves an exclusionary process based not on literary value, but on egregious market demographics. Should not great literature transcend generations? Or is it now apparently impossible for a McSweeney’s cigar box to appeal to someone outside of the 18-34 demographic? Or a Julia Glass novel to appeal to a twentysomething?
Tod Goldberg tries out MySpace. And Carolyn observes that this is the first year that the National Book Awards has a nominee with a MySpace page.
In this anonymous Telegraph review, some reviewer concludes that Frank Bascombe just might — just might, mind you — bear some similarities to Rabbit Angstrom. To which I reply, it took you three books to figure this out?
Like Jeff, the book space in my own apartment is rapidly depleting. The last thing I want to do is give up the walls that have been designated DO NOT PUT BOOKS HERE. But on Saturday, I improvised a crabwalk from the post office to my apartment carrying around fifty books. While this is all good exercise, I reveal this to illustrate just how crazed the fall publishing season is. Could it be, however, that libraries abhor a vacuum?
Kelly Link has been declared a “new wave fabulist.” I think I’ll settle for calling Link a fabulous writer and calling Jessica Winter a taxonomic new wanker. Why analyze a piece of fiction for its taxonomy when there’s plenty to unravel within the narrative?
Stephen Hawking’s next book will explain why we have a universe. The upshot: a number of quantum particles got involved in a poker game, one particle couldn’t pay out, and the result was an expansive universe to settle the debt.
Indie bookstores are fighting to stay alive. The main culprit appears to be Amazon. Not particularly new news, but a reminder nonetheless.