Return of the Roundup
Written byPosted on July 5, 2005
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- The gang Long Sunday talks with RotR fave China Miéville. Some of the topics discussed: genre, “voracious” narrative, the constraint of plot, and Jane Eyre. And what’s even crazier is that these two interviewers are just getting started. (via Mumpsimus)
- Indisputable proof that JSF is a younger J-Franz: “I remember, as a kid, I used to read the phone book and think that in 100 years, all these people would be dead.” Next thing you know, we’ll be reading a lengthy New Yorker essay about how Heathcliff saved JSF at a young age.
- And speaking of the New Yorker, there’s a lengthy profile of Roald Dahl this week. I’m not sure if I buy the idea that adults have always hated him, particularly when Margaret Talbot doesn’t cite a lot of examples to prove her thesis. If it’s controversy that Talbot is after, I would contend taht Dahl, like any original children’s author, has received no more and no less the amount complaints as Shel Silverstein.
- Blogging: good or bad for authors? The Times is so obsessed with these blogging articles that I’m awaiting the inevitable “Blogging: With Clothes or Without?” article, which should successfully merge their ridiculously genteel approach to the risque with its obsession with blogs as the new voice or the new something.
- And here’s yet another inconsequential Gray Lady correction: “An article on June 10 about criticism of Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, over several derogatory remarks he made about Republicans paraphrased incorrectly from his comment during an appearance in San Francisco. He said that the Republican Party was ‘pretty much a white, Christian party’ – not that it was made up ‘only’ of white Christian conservatives.” You see? Big difference.
- In Korea, blogs are being taken seriously by publishers.
- Bruce Campbell is big on the Dayton, Ohio bestsellers list.
- Another reason to hate Microsoft: they’re spoonfeeding your kids. A new Office add-on, MS Student, offers book summaries of literature and a time management program for homework. It also features a Bill Gates-led instructional video on how to not pay attention and stare vapidly into space, associating the blackboard with the “evil of Apple.”
- There’s a new development in the “chick lit” debate: Christian women.
- H.L. Mencken in defense of the Enoch Pratt Library.
- Proving once again that the Book Babes are advancing culture better than any journalists of our time, we now find them rating the “top 10 fictional hunks.” You know, if you’re going to go down that silly route, why stop there? Why not rate the top 10 fictional penises? My vote goes for Portnoy.
- If litbloggers aren’t havens for kinky librarians, then clearly the wild orgy I had with five librarians over the weekend (which involved being tied up while three of them read excerpts of David Mitchell and the other two serviced me) means I’m doing something wrong.
- And I’d be seriously remiss if I didn’t mention the free download of Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen to tie in with the release of Magic for Beginners. To read more on Link, you can check out Gwenda Bond’s interview with her on these pages back in September.
Technorati Tags: Roald Dahl, Kelly Link, China Mieville, JSF, New York Times, Bruce Campbell, chicklit, Mencken, Book Babes, kinky librarians, litbloggers, Howard Dean.
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Books To Jump Up and Down Over
Beyond Heaving Bosoms by Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan. The famed writers behind Smart Bitches, Trashy Books have written a very funny and thoughtful volume about romances, both Old Skool and New Skool. Here is a book that any smug and humorless literary manboy beating his flabby passive chest over Banville or Bolano should probably read pronto, if only for the distant possibility that he might get over himself. While the Choose Your Own Adventure segment at the end caused me to have a very disturbing dream involving Shelley Long (don't ask), Sarah and Candy did have me rethinking many of my own misperceptions when I wasn't busy laughing. They're not afraid to take on the New York Times Bok Review or even the groupthink within certain sectors of the romance community.
Alice Fantastic by Maggie Estep. This wild and highly enjoyable narrative involves two sisters (presumably, the third one was still being rented out by Chekhov), a hippie ex-junkie mother who lives with seventeen dogs, a murder, gambling, and libidinous Hollywood actresses who live in Woodstock. But this is the wonderful Maggie Estep we're talking here. And what seems at first like a quirky yarn becomes something unexpectedly moving about connectivity. What I love about Estep's work is the way that she'll juxtapose an extremely astute observation (now that you mention it, why do cab drivers always have somebody to talk with on the phone past midnight?) with an often outrageous story development.
Generosity by Richard Powers. It doesn't come out until September 29th, but Richard Powers's latest will have anyone committed to books reconsidering their literary fervor. I foresee some animosity from the vanilla critics hostile to idea-driven novels, but book bloggers, YouTube chroniclers, and MFAs would do well to plunge into this chance-taking narrative, which introduces vital questions about what the reader's relationship is with media, scientific dissection, and "creative nonfiction." Are we rats fleeing to happy cities? Or can we find the humanism within the purported plague?
Pieces for the Left Hand by J. Robert Lennon. Lennon is one of the most underrated fiction writers working today. Much as On the Night Plain proved that Lennon had a lot more in the toolbox than heartfelt (and often very funny) suburban satire, this slim but fascinating volume juxtaposes 100 small-town anecdotes -- arranged by category -- in a manner that reads, at times, like Nicholson Baker's passions for minutiae and, at other times, Stewart O'Nan's concern for psychological detail. The result is fiction that makes us wonder about whether one person's subjective view of particulars can entirely be trusted. This book never found a publisher in 2005. But thankfully, Graywolf has released it in the United States, along with Lennon's latest novel, The Castle.
Wonderful World by Javier Calvo. This wonderfully raucous volume has been completely ignored by the Washington Post, the New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times. But it's probably one of the most delightful reading experiences I've had this year. Calvo cavalierly mashes up multiple genres and manages to mix up familial subtext with larger-than-life, almost cartoonish characters. (Indeed, one might argue that one mobster's penis is a character of its own in this sprawling novel.). This is not an easy thing to pull off, but Calvo makes it work. And it's helped immeasurably by Mara Faye Lethem's idiom-specific translation. (See longer post.)
The Means of Reproduction, Michelle Goldberg This thoughtful book tackles the complicated (and little discussed) subject of reproductive rights from numerous angles, which includes a number of unpleasant but necessary ones. The upshot is that there isn't a quick fix solution for declining birth rates and fundamentalist abuses. Just about every political faction has contributed to the friction. But you'll want to read this book anyway to refamiliarize yourself with the topic, but also to understand just what's occurred during the past several decades to get us where we are today. (See also podcast interview with Goldberg.)
Portnoy’s got hisself a nice schmeckel, but I have to vote for Coover’s Lucky Pierre.
Guess who’s back? Ed’s Back!
If only that still lived on the web….
not sure why all the blogs are obsessed with JSF…is it his success? do we really have to “kill” people? why is there such a disconnect between his NY reviews (and to some extent the blogs) and his reception in the rest of the country?
sqk: I wasn’t invited to Nicole Krauss and JSF’s wedding reception. So I can’t comment.