The Biderbecke Affair points to an NYT review, which resembles not so much criticism, but an epidemic of rabies:
And before we go any further, I feel a strong need to confess something: My name is Ben, and I am a Juliaholic….Like a down-home Garbo, she is an Everywoman who looks like nobody else. And while I blush to admit it, she is one of the few celebrities who occasionally show up (to my great annoyance) in cameo roles in my dreams.
Dan Wickett serves up a you are there report on a recent Colson Whitehead reading in Ann Arbor, MI.
An interesting excerpt from The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia (coming from the Continuum Books people), suggesting that Dave Stewart’s only worthwhile function in the music world was to back Dylan.
Paul Constant, writing in The Stranger, serves up a contrarian review of Black Swan Green: “Black Swan Green could prove to be Mitchell’s most acclaimed novel yet, although it’s clearly his worst. There is almost nothing exceptional left to be written about children. It’s all been said before….”
Really? So I guess anyone writing about kids should just throw in the towel then. Because children, just like adults, have no complexity whatsoever. Children are mere amoebas, easily programmable and readable by the adult units, often skirting the edge of the ocean floor.
Constant complains that one of Jason’s sentiments about the Falkland Islands “rings false,” but never explains exactly why. He complains that cultural references get “name-checked,” as if Mitchell has written an encyclopedia book instead of a novel. But if one is writing about an adolescent in the early 1980s, does not a reference to one of the hottest video games of that era (Space Invaders) make sense?
I’m all for contrarian criticism. Even though I’m a Mitchell fan, I actually think Black Swan Green has been just a tad overpraised myself. But if unsubstantiated bile like this is the order of the day, how then can an array of variegated opinions be established?
Having become a Moleskine junkie last year against my better judgment, I’m a bit sad to hear that the company that makes those delicious books has put itself up for sale. Mario Beruzzi, who relaunched Moleskine in 1998, says that he’s overextended. The concern I have is whether a larger company will be able to produce the notebooks with the same quality and thoroughness that Moleskine currently puts into their product line. I certainly hope Beruzzi and company are being as meticulous with a buyer as they are with their notebooks. To get a clear-cut answer on this issue, I plan to track down the Moleskine people at BookExpo and ask them some hard questions about this. In the meantime, perhaps it’s time to load up on notebooks while they remain dependable and durable. (via Moleskinerie)
[UPDATE: Moleskinerie has received an official statement from Modo & Modo on this issue.]