- Critical Mass has a lovely list of links to John Leonard, a critic whose acumen can never be underestimated. Take, for example, this essay from 2005, in which Leonard declares of Jonathan Lethem, “Even so, from a young writer as clever as they come and as crafty as they get, who skinwalked and shape-changed from Kurt Vonnegut into Saul Bellow before our starry eyes, whose Huckleberry Brooklyn novel brought municipal fiction back from the dead, the whimsies in Men and Cartoons look like arrested development. And The Disappointment Artist, a collection of Lethem’s journalism and reminiscences, seems at first to be more of the same. Whole chapters are devoted to John Ford’s westerns, Philip K. Dick’s science fiction, Star Wars, John Cassavetes, and Stanley Kubrick. Page after page celebrates recording artists such as Chuck Berry, David Bowie, the Beatles, Elvis Costello, Brian Eno, Pink Floyd, and Cheap Trick, and such science fiction writers as Frank Herbert and Jules Verne. And when the loftier likes of Kafka, Borges, and Lem, or Faulkner, Beckett, and Joyce, or Cynthia Ozick, Grace Paley, and William Gass are mentioned at all, they will be fingered in brusque passing as ‘professional Bartlebys.’ It’s not as if he’s never met them; they show up in his novels, wearing turtlenecks and trench coats; they hang in his closet. Yet not one is worthy here even of a paragraph.” Today’s book critics are certainly content to venerate authors who deserve it, but a critic like Leonard reminds us that taking a long look at a wunderkind might get us thinking twice and healthily.
- The Maltese Falcon has disappeared!
- Ann VanderMeer has been named the new fiction editor for Weird Tales.
- Poetry readings while doing laundry? Now a possibility in New York!
- If you’re still looking for a Valentine’s Day pointers, Ron Jeremy offers advice.
- I’m disappointed with this list of great sex poems. Come on, Pinsky. If you can’t find us a villanelle about cunnilingus, then how can we be expected to adopt the French form? (via that Brockman guy)
- The New York Times investigates red velvet cake. I’m surprised I mentioned this before Tayari. (via Gwenda)
- Faster Than Light: a science fiction-based podcast I didn’t know about and will investigate later. They also had the good sense to talk with Mike Harrison.
- R.U. Sirius talks with Steven Levy (interview available in MP3 and text form) about how the iPod has changed culture.
- BSG gets renewed for a fourth season, but it appears to be on probation. It’s been guaranteed a minimum of thirteen hours. But given this season’s lackluster results, I really hope that Moore & Co. have been given a short leash so that they’ll turn out better storylines. (via Quiddity)
- To hell with Valentine’s Day. Happy Horny Werewolf Day.
- Jason Boog talks with Vikram Chandra about how to write a long novel.
- Forget shelling out ten bucks. Now there’s a brazen site called Oscartorrents. Argh, matey!
Roundup
– February 14, 2007Posted in: Uncategorized
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
Ed, as you can imagine I got about a zillion emails about the NYT and my favorite cake. All I could think was: Northerners.. what will they discover next? GRITS???
and did you see how weird those cakes looked? and the one made with BEETS! I just couldn’t post about it. I was too upset.