Yes, you too can add “Host”-style sidenotes to your blog, thanks to this nifty plug-in. But what of sidenotes within sidenotes? Come on, Arc 90. We want the real deal! (Results shown here.) (via Kottke)
Category / Wallace, David Foster
Roundup
- Another day, another Robert Birnbaum interview. This time: Uzodinma Iweala.
- Concerning the Jonathan Ames testicle controversy, it seems that the testicle is ahead of the shadow by a ratio of 5 to 1. Whether this will have any long-term impact on future perceptions of Jonathan Ames books remains to be seen, but there’s a rumor floating around that Augusten Burroughs has been considering “an accidental photo” for his next book. Just remember that Jonathan Ames was the first one there.
- It seems that only John Freeman is allowed to talk with David Foster Wallace. That’s two articles in seven days. What deal did he cook up with Bonnie Nadell? Or is John Freeman part of the DFW inner circle of “approved” people? (Former Freeman link via Scott)
- The history of mustard.
- Believe it or not, Ivan Turgenev’s one and only play, A Month in the Country, is playing in North Carolina. Free Gutenberg text here. Background info here.
- It started with a harmless exchange of information, but Maud and I have been trying to figure out why the Graham Greene-Anthony Burgess relationship was so strange. I sent Maud an interview with the two authors that I had read in Burgess’ But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen?. Jasper Milvain dug up more, pointing out that Greene disowned the interview, claiming that “Burgess put words into my mouth which I had to look up in the dictionary.” The two authors fell out, apparently by 1990, when Burgess published his second autobiographical volume, You’ve Had Your Time. And while I don’t entirely trust Wikipedia, the Anthony Burgess entry notes, “In 1957 Graham Greene asked him to bring some Chinese silk shirts back with him on furlough from Kuala Lumpur. As soon as Burgess handed over the shirts, Greene pulled out a knife and severed the cuffs, into which opium pellets had been sewn.” Now if that latter tidbit can be corroborated, then it’s just possible that the Burgess-Greene relationship might be one of the strangest in literary history. As soon as I get an opportunity to hit the library, I’m going to follow up on all this. Did Burgess and Greene love to hate each other? Or did they hate to love each other? Or was it a little bit of both? Perhaps some bona-fide authorities might have some answers to all this.
[UPDATE: Jasper has an update on the Greene-Burgess contretemps, with some citations. And in the comments to this post, Jenny Davidson offers some materal from the forthcoming Biswell biography, which apparently deals with Graham Greene at great length.]
Or It Could Be That Nobody Real Likes a Whiner, No Matter How Talented
Could it be that DFW’s fussiness with public appearances is losing converts? Or at least causing the staunch support of DFW zealots to waver? Counterbalance has posted her conclusion of “DFW on the Installment Plan” and opines, “But then, somewhere, I lost my crush. His sermon from the mount veered into the realm of too preachy, too misunderstood-genius-artist for me. And it pissed me off. I began to feel that I had to — if at all possible — separate the man from the writing. But is such a thing possible? Necessary?…Perhaps that is why he doesn’t do readings & interviews. His self-referential musings that charm on the page seem somehow inappropriate and lofty in person. Almost vulgar.”
Consider the Dust Jacket
Over at Foreword, alternative covers to Consider the Lobster are being considered
Infinite Writeups
Another amusing DFW writeup — this one in installments. Part of me is wondering just what it is about DFW that causes us to write these lengthy reports. Does submerging one’s self in a lengthy novel cause us to expatiate at length? (via Agent Bond)