Duras’ Vietnam
Matt Gross retraces the steps of Marguerite Duras in Saigon. (Thanks to Wah-Ming Chang for the link.)
The house pictured at right is the villa where Duras’ Chinese lover lived. The place now serves as the headquarters of the antidrug police.
Although it’s become fashionable to dismiss the nouveau roman as “a gimmick, a cul-de-sac [...]
Shteyngart reads online
Gary Shteyngart reads from his new novel, Absurdistan, in an interactive feature accompanying Walter Kirn’s glowing NYTBR review this weekend.
In the excerpt, Shteyngart’s fat protagonist, Misha, placidly eats salami and pulls at his breast tissue as he prepares for a move with his mother from Russia to the States. His father, who’s staying [...]
Signing off
That’s all for me for the day. I’ve got to run. I’m just super* super** busy*** lately. Really.
If you missed it because all this talk of zombies and hamsters have pushed it right down the page, you should check out Maud’s great coverage of PEN’s Faith & Reason event. She’ll be back [...]
Remains of the day
This is incredibly disturbing. I’d rather outrun zombies than see this film. I can’t imagine a worse movie adapation. Oh, wait. Yes I can. (Via Bookslut).
Janet Maslin looks at chick-lit and beyond, finding Caitlin Flanagan’s newest “arrogantly highhanded” so we don’t have to.
All about Ali Smith.
Best for last: The redoubtable Morning News, [...]
Edgar winners announced
The winners of the annual Edgar awards – presented by the Mystery Writers of America for the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television and film- were announced last night. In the interest of preserving some mystery*, you’ll have to go here for a full list of nominees and winners.
*No, I don’t have the [...]
Opal’s life, withdrawn
Oh, I bet you’re about as sick of this as I am, but still, there’s more about the Harvard sophomore Kaavya Viswanathan, who admitted to copying parts of her chicklit novel “How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life” earlier this week. Little, Brown, the publisher said yesterday it would [...]
Happy weekend
No more from me this week. Annie Reid will step in tomorrow, not a moment too soon.
And I’ll leave you with Paul Daly’s photo of “Dublin’s fave literary tribute, a representation of Joyce’s Annalivia Plurabelle, locally known as ‘The Floozie in the Jacuzzi.’”
On PEN’s Faith & Reason event
Featuring Chinua Achebe, Martin Amis, Gioconda Belli, Roberto Calasso, E. L. Doctorow, David Grossman, Elias Khoury, Yusef Komunyakaa, Salman Rushdie, Zadie Smith, Duong Thu Huong, Ayu Utami, Jeanette Winterson, and the prepared remarks of Nadine Gordimer. Apologies for the length and inarticulate patches. I’ve opted for inclusiveness rather than concision out of deference [...]
Holy book neuroses
Shalom is one of the 72 names of God in Hebrew. Consequently, as a child, writer Shalom Auslander learned that everything he “put [his] name on — quizzes, book reports, Highlights — became instantly holy.”
All this sacredness precipitated some writerly neuroses — “when I think what I’m working on is holy I can’t write [...]
Lethem & Spiegelman on copyright
On today’s Brian Lehrer show, “novelist Jonathan Lethem and cartoonist Art Spiegelman debate the evolving role of intellectual property laws.”
Written, but never packaged
John Barlow recalls his failed fling with a book packager.
In the midst of this I had a disagreement with my (then) agent, in which I gained the upper hand in very convincing style by sacking him. In this way I moved instantly from promising-but-unknown writer with a middle-ranking New York agent to promising-but-unknown writer with [...]
Thirteen writers on faith & reason
Michael Orthofer offers a report on last night’s fascinating Faith & Reason: Writers Speak event at Town Hall, which featured Salman Rushdie, Chinua Achebe, Martin Amis, Gioconda Belli, Roberto Calasso, E. L. Doctorow, David Grossman, Elias Khoury, Yusef Komunyakaa, Zadie Smith, Duong Thu Huong, Ayu Utami, and Jeanette Winterson. Nadine Gordimer was slated to [...]
It’s April; cue Orange Prize debate
Evidently it is going to be necessary to revisit each year the question whether women writers need the Orange Prize.
It is interesting that while readers can absolutely see the vitality of a book such as [On Beauty], and took it to their hearts, the prize culture lagged behind. I’m not saying that this is because [...]
R.I.P. Jane Jacobs: a eulogy from Duncan Murrell
When Duncan Murrell relocated to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, he was partly inspired by writer and urban theorist Jane Jacobs, who prevented Robert Moses from turning lower Manhattan into an expressway, and who died yesterday. Murrell remembers Jacobs below. (Photo swiped from the Boston Globe obituary).
I blame Jane Jacobs for the miserably [...]
Ladies, you should know better
The last time I railed against the warmed-over Phyllis Schlafly rhetoric posing as meaningful gender analysis in our nation’s journalistic outlets, the editor of a well-regarded publication wrote in to accuse me of having a “little agenda.” He closed his email with this chastisement: “Not what I’d expect from a Southern lady at [...]
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