Month / December 2006

by Edward Champion

The Slate Audio Book Club Strikes Again!

2006 wouldn’t be complete without another inept appearance from those dimwitted trendsetters at the Slate Audio Book Club! When last we checked in with the gang, they had moved on from racist generalizations and had declared Michael Pollan’s investigations into how food is prepared and distributed as “yuppie fussiness.” Not to be outdone, these infamous Three Amigos look into Claire Messud’s The Emperor’s Children.

Meghan O’Rourke is sometimes a good critic and the smartest of the bunch (although being smarter than Roiphe and Metcalf is as seminal an achievement as knowing how to speak Pig Latin). But she sounds bored here, unable to muster up a single shred of enthusiasm, which is odd given her enthusiasm for the book in the NYTBR. It’s as if she just emerged from a day of watching Antonioni’s L’Avventura on an endless loop to impress a few friends. She introduces Stephen Metcalf and Katie “Pipsqueak Ph.D.” Roiphe. She offers a plot summary that makes Messud’s splendid novel no fun at all, a noticeable huff in her voice representing one of two possibilities: either she has to spend another hour suffering generalizations from these two assclowns or she’s going to kill multimedia editor Andy Bowers for setting her up with this gig in the first place.

“We’ll get more into the plot because it’s somewhat ornate and elaborate,” huffs O’Rourke.

Did O’Rourke and I read the same book? If by “ornate and elaborate,” you mean a novel that features more than three characters, then I suppose O’Rourke has a point. Perhaps the assumption here made by the Book Club members (and Bowers) is that those listening in to this podcast have an attention span shorter than Warwick Davis. But if she genuinely believes that Messud’s book features a plot that’s difficult to follow, then perhaps she should be leading her fellow Book Club members into a discussion of Jacqueline Sussan’s oeuvre instead of Messud.

Katie Roiphe is the first to chirp in, remarking that the book is just great. Golly! Because first and foremost it’s a page-turner (again, Sussan sounds more her speed) and that Messud has “higher literary aspirations.” And you know, like, maybe there might be “some element of the kind of 19th century novel,” but, like totally, I can’t figure out what it might be. Could it be a novel of manners? That’s what Meghan said. Yeah! That’s 19th century novel, isn’t it? Maybe I can get to Malibu by day’s end and catch some waves.

But here’s Roiphe’s most profound observation: “It does go into their lives in a way that’s deeper than the kind of usual coming-of-age book, which this sort of falls into roughly into the category of.”

Metcalf then emerges into this folderol, offering the smug pronouncement that he found the early portions of the book better than the latter portions. “We can get into why later.” This is the kind of sentence you hear from someone who wants you to believe he knows what he’s talking about, but who hasn’t really thought out his argument.

Falling naturally into the role of smug parvenu, Metcalf then pronounces, “When I liked it most, I was thinking of Edith Wharton. When I liked it less, well, I was thinking of Zadie Smith’s last book. When I liked it least, I was thinking of David Lodge. And I think it oscillates between those three.”

Fantastic, Stephen. Not a single example elucidating why. Just generalizations as usual with random authors tossed around like throw rugs in a bathroom. It says something about Metcalf’s humorlessness that he thinks so little of David Lodge. But then The Emperor’s Children is neither an academic satire nor a sex comedy. Did this guy even read the damn book? Or was this one of those situations where Metcalf read the book the night before with his mouth permanently affixed to a bottle of bourbon?

Amazingly, Roiphe is at least capable of parsing the Anglicized vernacular within the book. (Metcalf finds this a distraction.) But alas, she sees this as a flaw, apparently unfamiliar with the Anglicized bloviators who can be overheard during any three-block walk through Chelsea or the Marina. Alas, Roiphe is more content to flap her maw rather than actually listen or stop to think.

Close to the four minute mark, I had had quite enough of this, particularly when Katie name-checked her dear mama.

The Slate Audio Book Club is a very good idea. But the only way for it to be meaningful is to up the intellectual bar, have the show’s participants offer some kind of enthusiasm, and pair Meghan O’Rourke up with two people who know what the hell they’re talking about.

by Edward Champion

BSS #87: Simon Winchester

segundo87.jpg

Condition of Mr. Segundo: Ready to drink geologists under the table.

Author: Simon Winchester

Subjects Discussed: San Francisco’s edgy impermanence, San Francisco vs. Venice and the North Sea cities, humankind’s geological privilege, New Orleans & Katrina, the hubris of California residents, anonymous threatening letters, denial vs. geology, Japan and disaster preparation, West Coast subliminal fear, editorial input into Winchester’s work, San Francisco vs. Daly City reactions to the earthquake centenary, Bruce Bolt, the true epicenter of the 1906 earthquake, Jim Tanner, Loma Prieta, subparallel faults, the Parkfield drilling, operating in the geological dark, responding to Bryan Burrough’s NYTBR review and Sam Tanenhaus, the importance of geology, Kevin Starr as an influence, Katrina federal aid vs. 1906 federal aid, looting after the 1906 earthquake, Winchester’s stance on tracking casualties, and defining historical context.

EXCERPT FROM SHOW:

Winchester: The San Francisco event was a minor seismic event, but a major social event and a major scientific event that had huge importance on American history. Because it was the first time in world history that we stopped looking at these catastrophes as the work of a malevolent god and started to look at them as a natural event which should be explained. And so instead of unleashing priests on the problem, which we did in Lisbon in 1755 and after Krakatoa — mullahs there, because it was Islamic — in 1883, we unleashed on the orders of the then Republican Governor of California — Mr. Pardee, a rather dull dentist — we unleashed scientists. And scientists gave us answers. And those answers are of such profound importance that niggling around with whether there were 500 or 50 or 300, whether they were shot, whether they died under falling buildings, whether there was a deaf fireman, are so unimportant. They’re the stuff of tabloid journalism. They’re not the stuff of history.

What I was attempting to grapple with in this book was a historical series of realities, why this was an important earthquake. And whether or not the casualty figures were 1,000 or 5,000 is more or less irrelevant. It was the aftermath, the impact on human society, generally that is important.

Correspondent: So in covering any sort of moment in history, it’s not necessarily the fatality —

Winchester: You don’t cover the moments in history. Journalists cover moments. Historians look back on them with perspective and have, I think, a wider view which does not encompass the tiny details of whether there was a deaf fireman shot. It’s of no consequence whatsoever.

Listen: Play in new window | Download

by Edward Champion

Top O’ The Heap

One thing I love about year’s end is the funky list. 10 Zen Monkeys serves up another: The Worst Vlogs of 2006. (Thanks, David Cassel.)

And speaking of top ten, now that Xmas is past and we’re all paying off our credit cards, my own top ten books list will appear in the next few days.

And now that I’ve conquered the cold, you’ll also be getting some more podcasts that I had hoped to offer before Xmas, as well as the beginnings of the Pynchon roundtable, very soon. Never let it be said that you didn’t have content from me to help you nurse your hangovers.

by Edward Champion

New Rupert Thomson Novel

I had been holding off on the news until I had more details, but since Megan popped the cherry on this goodness, I’ll simply point you over to Bookdwarf and let you get the skinny yourself: Rupert Thomson’s got a brand new bag in 2007.

It’s safe to say that if you haven’t read Rupert Thomson, you’re missing out big time. Get thee to a bookstore immediately and start with The Book of Revelation. The man’s got the chops and more. You can also listen to his appearance earlier this year on The Bat Segundo Show.

by Edward Champion

Roundup

  • Justine Larbaleister has some good suggestions for oversensitive writers.
  • Time Out London lists the top ten children’s books of 2006.
  • This morning, when I woke up and heard that Gerald Ford had died and the wind was pattering against my window like something out of a TV disaster movie done on the cheap, I had to call my girlfriend to determine if I was, in fact, operating in reality and not living out some phantasmagorical dream. For several hours, I believed this. But now that I’ve read this item about an “edgy parenting magazine,” I must conclude that either today is preternaturally strange or I am not, in fact, now in the real world. If there’s a doctor out there who might be able to take my pulse during my lunch hour, please let me know.
  • Apparently, literary criticism is “cognitive freedom.” If this is the case, I will write my next review assignment in Edward Lear-style nonsense verse and tell my editor that it was because Geoffrey Galt Harpham told me so.
  • Jay McInerney is apparently “a boldface name.” Whether this is because McInerney is fond of repeated emphasis of his oenophilia or because his craggy and embarrassing visage still insists that he’s the center of the universe is anybody’s guess.
  • Not the “nudie calendar” you’re thinking.
  • Schezee Zadi asks the world to remember Urdu poet Perveen Shakir.
  • John Heath-Stubbs, the poet who translated the only literary work by a woman from ancient Rome to English, has passed away.
  • The Los Angeles Times‘ Josh Getlin suggests that works from Debra Ginsberg and Bridie Clark might represent the next Devil Wears Prada. So let me get this straight: Prada is the new litmus test for confessional fiction? What of Thomas Wolfe or Sinclair Lewis? They both came decades before Lauren Weisberger and it’s safe to say that they both wrote Weisberger under the table. Hell, in Lewis’s case, he wrote much of his fiction while he was under the table.
  • The Independent‘s DJ Taylor offers a second look at Richard Bradford’s The Novel Now. You can check out an excerpt of Bradford’s book here.
  • Does Pynchon fill in enough literary gaps?
  • Otto Penzler: “This is a good time of year to allow yourself to hate someone.” No wonder he’s such a bitter assclown. How does it work for Otto, I wonder? If he hugs you after you give him a gift, does he tear a hunk of meat from your shoulder with his teeth and then stab you in the chest multiple times with an icepick? (via The Dizzies)
  • I agree with Tayari. Dreamgirls is worth your time.
  • McClatchy has sold off the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.
  • Yet a third layout of David Foster Wallace’s “Host” has made its way onto the Columbia University Press site. It’s an improvement upon the version that appeared in Consider the Lobster, but it still pales in comparison to the color-coded version that ultimately appeared in the Atlantic. But I suspect that CUP’s version is a bit easier on the eyes for those who remain bemused. (via Beatrice)