Roundup
Written byPosted on January 18, 2007
Filed Under Roundup
- Columnist Art Buchwald is dead at 81.
- In Jules Verne’s 1882 novel Le Rayon Vert, Verne described the green flash of sunset as “a green which no artist could ever obtain on his palette, a green of which neither the varied tints of vegetation nor the shades of the most limpid sea could ever produce the like! If there is a green in Paradise, it cannot be but of this shade, which most surely is the true green of Hope.” Well, it appears that a photographer has captured the green flash on camera. It remains something of a mystery as to how Verne initially detected the flash, but some Verne scholars suspect that Verne began to see it during his famous (and often underreported) encounter with a gangrenous streaker.
- Radio Free PGW posts this message from the PGW ad hoc committee.
- An interesting interview with Joanna Newsom. (via This Space)
- Preposterous swag received by The Onion. My favorite: the “Just Do Me” breath mint.
- James Reasoner has authored 200 books. (via Lee Goldberg)
- Why did Neal Pollack write Alternadad? “I needed a new book contract in order to feed my family.” If only more writers could be this honest.
- Redheads won’t be having all the fun in a hundred years. In fact, there won’t be any left on this planet by 2100. I’m troubled by this. I had thought that, as a redhead (or perhaps “reddish” head, given that what remains of my hair is now more of an auburn timbre; when I was a lad, I sailed the berm with a red moptop and some unleashed sperm), I would one day produce legions of redheaded children who would then, in turn, spread their seed across the earth. I had counted upon my recessive genes to be resilient, working against insurmountable odds. But this won’t be the case at all. So have at it, lovers and casual fornicators! Get those redheads in the sack before they’re gone! (via Bookninja)
- Mr. Esposito observes that Vollmann is in the March Harper’s.
- Leah Adezio has passed on and Heidi MacDonald has links.
- Something to look for on YouTube.
- Bill Peschel revisits the Martin Amis teeth debacle.
- John Fox believes that Vollmann’s Swofford review was excessively harsh for a first novel.
- Tad Williams and Aquaman!
- Apparently, Silverblatt’s people can’t spell Bascombe.
- The American bathroom as status symbol. (via Magnificent “Ambersons” Octopus)
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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.)
“when I was a lad, I sailed the berm with a red moptop and some unleashed sperm”
Am I seeing things or are you freestyling some Gilbert and Sullivan here?
I think you meant “freebasing”…
Is that article on Joanna Newsom considered an interview? I mean, a writer usually has to talk to the subject in order to write a profile, but I don’t think that automatically makes the piece an interview.
Anyway, I think it’s a great piece.
It’s especially fun because I live in Nevada City. That makes it exciting.