Roundup
Written by Edward ChampionPosted on May 26, 2008
Filed Under Roundup
- I’ve been reading a lot of Iain Banks of late. And I haven’t had this much fun reading in a while. Anyone who can write the sentence, “What the crushingly powerful four-limbed hug would have done to a human unprotected by a suit designed to withstand pressures comparable to those found at the bottom of an ocean probably did not bear thinking about, but then a human exposed without protection to the conditions required to support Affronter life would be dying in at least three excitingly different and painful ways anyway without having to worry about being crushed by a cage of leg-thick tentacles,” is a man after my own heart. And I’m kicking myself for not having read the Culture novels earlier, particularly after Player of Games and Excession. Lengthy ruminations on Banks will eventually follow. But in the meantime, this YouTube video of Banks showing off his study reveals him to be quite a funny man. For those who didn’t know this already.
- The hatred towards overweight people in this post is outright sociopathic. I am appalled. What cretin could find such slurs and cheap shots funny? What atavistic mind could take pleasure in this exercise? People come together to a convention to meet others and discuss topics that they’re interested in. Images with Photoshopped frowns and hateful captions are the thanks they get? I am further appalled to discover that not a single comment has lodged a protest against these calumnies. Well, since “Zathlazip” cannot be bothered to provide her real name, I should note that investigation reveals the coward’s name to be Rachel Moss. She lives in Wisconsin, having moved out there after a stint at John Hopkins. Let that name live in infamy. (UPDATE: For those who missed out on this, I think The Angry Black Woman sums up the incident quite well. I share her explanation for why I will not remove Rachel Moss’s name and why I have little sympathy for what Rachel Moss did.)
- Mark Sarvas scores a Seattle Times profile, which is fine and all. But where’s the talk of Harry, Revised? Where are the necessary queries into literary erections? Where are the pivotal questions about how many funerals Mr. Sarvas has been to? How frequently he has had sartorial mishaps? The spinning debacles he keeps from the public at large? This is journalism, dammit! The questions must be deployed!
- So the insufferable Joe Queenan praises Scandinavian mystery writers. And you think to yourself that Queenan has, after a relentless torrent of grumpy and remarkably unfunny articles bemoaning everything under the sun, finally found something he likes! But then, at the end, the article drifts into an anticlimactic cynicism that cancels out the praise, leaving one to wonder what exactly Queenan’s purpose is in life. But I think I have a solution to the Queenan problem. To my knowledge, Queenan hasn’t written anything about Uwe Boll. But if someone were to whisper something into Boll’s ear about how Queenan savaged Boll in one of his pieces, Boll could then challenge Queenan to a boxing match, and Queenan could then get thoroughly trounced, and he might learn a bit of humility. Yes, it’s an unlikely scenario. Queenan learning humility, that is. But one can certainly dream.
- Is The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction washed up?
- Shameless Words, we hardly knew ye!
- Old news, but blogs don’t necessarily mean bestselling books.
- Will Self has won the 2008 Wodehouse Prize for his latest novel, The Butt, which is out in the UK and hits the States on September 16. The judges showed especially good sense in having Self triumph over Garrison Keillor, a man who may be categorized as “funny” but who cannot provide sufficient evidence. In fact, social scientists have been searching for years for a sufficient exemplar — a mass audience that actually finds Keillor funny. Unfortunately, the last recorded audience who found Keillor funny (at a minimum of 60%) was in 1988.
- Toles rips off Jaffee!
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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.)
I am so glad that you brought the roundup back!
Thanks for the info on Ms. Moss. I’m one of the people at the convention and getting her identified so she can’t come back is excellent. Thank you so much.
Kind of a double-reverse “Big Brother” situation (except, like, “Big Sister”, instead). Chilling?
What the hell? I swear, the internet just makes people who are insecure assholes waste their days insulting strangers in a cowardly manner. I like the idea of outing them. That and every jackass on that forum cheering them on, because making fun of fat people is “made of win!”.
This reminds me of Jezebel’s weekly feature on gossip blogs attacking women. Those are the worst – they put down these beautiful thin women for being fat or ugly all the time.
There will be no posts on the actual SA thread coming out against this post. The thread itself is now closed for comments. SA is made for trolling and pileons, and the mods and community will ban and ceaselessly mock anyone who speaks up for decency.
I’d be very surprised if feminist responses to this didn’t also turn up in SA at some future point, thoroughly trivialized and mocked. Expect lots of “ha ha humorless feminist” jokes and Photoshopped sexually-degrading photos.
If you look on the SASS site they re-posted zathlazip’s post and are having a great time turning the misogyny firehose right back onto her.
I would very much appreciate your removing Zathlazip’s real name from your site. I understand that she has already received several threats of physical injury. This even though she had the post removed from the SASS site. What she posted may have been unkind, but I’m sure you don’t truly want to see anyone injured because of your posting. Thank you.
While I don’t like to see anybody hurt, I am not responsible for any threats of physical harm directed towards Ms. Moss. I am not making threats, nor is anyone in this thread making threats. Ms. Moss is responsible for the words she wrote. She is an adult. And I imagine she is learning a terrible lesson about what it means to be an adult.