Roundup
Written byPosted on December 13, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- Diana West’s The Death of the Grown-Up, has received a handful of notices: William Grimes mocked it and The New Criterion’s Stefan Beck was less dismissive, pointing to the Grimes Defense (”If an argument has been exaggerated a little bit for effect, we can throw it out—baby, bathwater, and even the soap scum of lingering doubt.”). Beck appears to be unaware that Grimes’s diluted form of reductio ad absurdum has existed long before Grimes. Indeed, it’s in use by many of today’s critics. And while many bemoan this rhetorical tactic, it is nevertheless a valid form of argumentative response. The problem with Grimes’s review in question isn’t his stance, but the flitting manner in which he declares West “Wrong. Totally wrong.” on the subject of Islam without citing specific textual examples. A good editor would have called Grimes on this and demanded that he strengthen his argument. Grimes really should have been permitted to write a 2,000 word essay instead of having his argumentative column inches diminished. Alas, the days where essays could be expanded to meet their argumentative requirements (as opposed to advertising demands) appear to be long over.
- Heidi McDonald observes that a new Speed Racer comic is forthcoming.
- Yes, I too am worried about David Schwimmer as feature film director, but with Simon Pegg and Dylan Moran on board, maybe — just maybe — there’s a chance.
- Keir Graff has more astonishing numbers about book critics and ethics.
- More demonstrative proof that Katie Couric has all the journalistic prowess of a Vegas cocktail waitress. The CJR’s Curtis Brainard, however, thinks that such a limp line of questioning is fair game.
- Jonathan Lethem’s “The King of Sentences.”
- This year’s Orange Broadband Prize celebrity dunce jude? Lily Allen. Presumably, Allen will call at least one of the Orange Prize finalists a “cunt” and find a way to blame her slur on Amy Winehouse.
- Bloglines appears to be seriously messed up. I’ve noticed that many blogs have lost scores of subscribers overnight. Between this, the delayed text, and the recurrent appearances of the Bloglines Plumber, I think I’m switching over to Google Reader or something else.
- Alas, I was too swamped in deadlines to offer a few thoughts for this, but January Magazine has released its holiday gift guide.
- Is it possible that the grand horror film company Hammer is using MySpace to make a comeback? (They will be releasing Beyond the Rave, the first Hammer film in 30 years and Ingrid Pitt is in the cast.)
- The Sharp Side on Malcolm Lowry. (via Mark Thwaite)
- Wayne Koestenbaum on Elizabeth Hardwick.
- Joseph Duemer investigates a mystery involving copyright and Bruce Springsteen’s image.
- Normblog responds to Doris Lessing’s Nobel speech, pointing to five ways in which the Internet is beneficial to books. (via Maxine)
- The 100 Great Christmas Bummers. (via Pages Turned)
- Motoko Rich investigates how web work transforms into book sales. (Also related, albeit not particularly penetrating: the rise and fall of blogger book deals.)
- Nicolas Cage and Alex Proyas are teaming up. I thoroughly loathed Proyas’s cinematic bastardization of I, Robot and have hoped since then that the guy who gave us the startling and underrated Dark City isn’t washed up.
- It appears that the Cincinnati Post is dead in three weeks.
- Harold Pinter’s papers are being preserved.
- Also from the Guardian: DJ Taylor argues that authors have the right to say controversial things.
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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.)
It’s pretty depressing losing the Post in the town where Clear Channel’s radio division was… hatched?
For newspapers, it’s gotten bad. In addition to the Post and Enquirer, you used to be able to get the Indianapolis Star, Dayton Daily News, and Louisville Courier-Journal at any BN or Fountain Square News if you wanted perspective.
The Star, DN, and CJ have long since stopped distributing here, except on the fringes, and the Star doesn’t even bother with the casino boat towns over the border in Indiana anymore.
With the death of the Post, we’re left with the dogmatically conservative Enquirer. Our only alternative is the weekly City Beat, which is against anything the Enquirer is for.
New Year’s Eve will be a sad day in Cincinnati.
Man, that Post head was really tasteless, even for the post.
Sorry you’re having trouble with Bloglines. I had lost all my feeds, but I attributed that to the new Firefox Christmas skin I installed. Once I dumped it and emptied my cache, they all came back.
Now, for some reason, Bloglines is feeding mee up to 200 posts from some people, forgetting I had already read them.
Still, I’ll be sticking with them. I’ve tried Reader twice and found it exceptionally clumsy. Bloglines throws up the posts much faster on my dial-up.
I switched from Bloglines to Google Reader about a year ago and have never regretted it.