The happy Pullman train doesn’t stop with Chabon. The Archbishop of Canterbury notes that despite Phillip Pullman’s “anti-Christian” stance, he finds the trilogy a near miraculous triumph. The Left Behind books, meanwhile, remain miraculous only in dramatically underestimating how many readers are willing to defer to guilt and paranoia.

Dame Muriel Spark, best known for The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, is 86 and still writing, despite arthritis, failing eyesight and an inveterate biscuit addiction. She’s just published her 23rd novel.

Harvey Pekar has nabbed a three-book deal with Ballantine. The first will be a followup to American Splendor, dealing with the making of the film, and the next two will be biographies rather than autobiographies. Pekar’s wife, Joyce Brabner, noted that, “We can at last afford to add protein to our diet.”

Judy Blume must be trying to avoid soup kitchens these days. She’s just signed away her books to Disney. Whether Deenie‘s infamous masturbation will be addressed on screen (preferably with Donald Duck involved) remains to be seen.

Online reference sites have cut into the encyclopedia. If there’s any boon to this sad news, it means less encyclopedia salesmen hectoring you at the door. However, Jehovah’s witnesses, hoping to take advantage of this downturn, plan to step up their efforts.

Liverpool has come up with a unique way to celebrate its writers: a beer mat. Some of the initial ideas included a commemorative toilet brush, collectible maxis, and an Alan Bleasdale nose hair trimmer. Fortunately, the Liverpool lads settled on the beer mat. Declasse, yes. But truer to the Liverpool spirit.

The PEN/Faulkner nominees have been announced:

Elroy Nights by Frederick Barthelme
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer
A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips
The Early Stories by John Updike
Old School by Tobias Wolff

The winner will receive $15,000. The other finalists will nab $5,000. Between the endless New Yorker pieces and the backlist lucre, I’d say Updike’s due a tax audit right about now.

A version of Sam Shepard’s True West playing at the Baruch College Theater turned the sisters into brothers. Shepard was not amused and ordered the play shut down through his agent. The play’s fate is up in the air. (Also in the article: David Talbot has hired Sidney Blumenthal as Salon’s Washington bureau chief. Between this and The Clinton Wars, does this sound like a man whose reputation was completely decimated by Matt Drudge?)

The Hollywood Reporter does the math. Mel will get about $115 million from The Passion. Which means he’ll never have to work again. Let’s hope not.

First, the Age gets intimidated by Coetzee. Now it’s frightened by Sara Nelson? Two different writers, same newspaper. What’s the matter with journalists at the Age? Are they terrified of all interview subjects? Someone Down Under needs a hug. (via Sarah)

Maud: “She and my stepdad and all the other mourners except my sister and Mr. Maud went to their cars. They were all wringing their hands and shaking their heads, clearly mortified at our behavior. People just don’t watch the lowering of the casket in Baptist cemeteries in Bumcombe County, I guess.”

Christopher Farah’s second Salon book review has a low-concept spiteful approach that seems perfect for one of those free liberal weekly rags that you pick up at a cafe and read on the crapper. Farah is a critic incapable of enjoying science fiction (apparently, this is how he categorizes any novel involving magical realism), let alone putting aside genre distinctions for the sake of enjoying a book. Farah is a needlessly bitter and angry worm who cannot put aside a goofy premise for the sake of a good read.

Or is he? The review shifts near the end and suddenly plays nice.

Salon wants us to whip out our credit cards for this?

Of course, in a free weekly, the reviewer’s name would be subject to ridicule — and the review would be trite, overly ad hominen and shallow. Perhaps with a touch of genuine passion, but ultimately unprintable in any place publishing serious criticism. Instead, Christopher Farrah’s review purports to be a serious work of criticism, housed in an online outlet that believes itself to be PBS, with the ads functioning as surrogate pledge breaks. It is a review written with too many clauses and lots of bitter modifers, presumably with the hope that this will transform what is obviously an out-to-lunch attack piece (or at least half an attack) into an essay that doesn’t even understand the basics of speculative fiction.

Imagine a thirtysomething critic that you hope to get a reasonable opinion from on a book. But instead, he pulls down his pants and moons you. Then he calls you an idiot for daring to find something positive about the piece of turd coming out of his ass. And then he turns around and kisses you on the lips.

That is Christopher Farah in a nutshell. No subtlety, no wit. Strange flip-flops (several of them in fact) inside paragraphs. Not even a hint of reason. Just a man going after the strangest targets with unjustified piss and vinegar. It recalls the French revolution in 1789. But instead of crazed mobs calling for “liberty, equality and brotherhood,” Christopher Farah calls for the anonybloggers to reveal themselves and books to clarify their literatary categorization. I could be wrong, but there might be more pressing issues of our time.

And now the Tivoli review which, at its essence, is neither a love story, a hate piece, nor fantasy or science fiction. One would hope that its unchecked fire and its cross-spectrum fulminating represents something satirical. But, no, it appears he’s serious. What’s really odd is how Farah, after spending paragraphs bemoaning the “gimmick,” then turns around to call the book “an excellent read.”

Either Farah is a schizophrenic writer, or he’s unintentionally amusing us. You make the call.

(Hat tip: Beatrice.)

“I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.” — Booker Washington

“Confidence comes not from always being right but from not fearing to be wrong.” — Peter T. McIntyre

“Education is a progressive discovery of our own ignorance.” — Will Durant

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” — Rita Mae Brown

“The opposite of love is not hate, the opposite of love is ignorance.” — Brian Hwang

“If the person you are talking to doesn’t appear to be listening, be patient. It may simply be that he has a small piece of fluff in his ear.” — A.A. Milne

“Those who are convinced they have a monopoly on The Truth always feel that they are only saving the world when they slaughter the heretics.” — Arthur M. Schlesinger

“Beware the fury of the patient man.” — John Dryden

“When one begins to live by habit and by quotation, one has begun to stop living.” — James Baldwin

He may not be as hunky or as lucrative as Nick Laird, but Boris Starling is cadaver-crazy. Not only are his novels filled with corpses, but he also appeared as one on television. “I’ve already started making plans for how my own corpse will look like,” said Starling. “My family has a proud tradition of being buried in open caskets.” Clearly, Jim Crace has nothing on this guy.

Alex Beam calls Charles Portis “the greatest writer you’ve never heard of.” Ron Rosenbaum’s also crazy about him. So is Tin House‘s Cassandra Cleghorn. Portis is having four of his books reisused by the Overlook Press. And if you can’t wait, the Atlantic has one of his stories available online.

[UPDATE: Ron points to this helpful Ed Park profile. Today, I read the first four pages of The Dog of the South and laughed my head off. It looks like Portis may live up to the hype.]

Carol Shields’ stories are have been adapted for Canadian television. Sarah Polley makes her directing debut with one story. John Doyle suggests this might be the way to market dramatic television to Canadians.

Speaking of television, for those (like me), who don’t have cable or (unlike Peter Sellers) don’t watch, here’s the edited highlights of a conversation with John Updike. Updike writes 1,000 words every morning and says the great secret is “sitting ability.” Nothing new under the sun.