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Continue reading “Unrequired Reading: Oct. 10, 2008”
Pale Fire
Adam Kirsch, my favorite book critic at the now-defunct New York Sun, has landed at Slate. It doesn’t say if he’s going to have a regular spot there, but I hope that’s the case. I also hope he’s given as much range in his assignments as he was at the Sun.
Kirsch’s first post-Sun item is on the idiocy of Horace Engdahl, that Nobel literary judge who recently remarked that American writers are too insular to measure up on the world stage. Sez Kirsch:
As long as America could still be regarded as Europe’s backwater—as long as a poet like T.S. Eliot had to leave America for England in order to become famous enough to win the Nobel—it was easy to give American literature the occasional pat on the head. But now that the situation is reversed, and it is Europe that looks culturally, economically, and politically dependent on the United States, European pride can be assuaged only by pretending that American literature doesn’t exist. When Engdahl declares, “You can’t get away from the fact that Europe still is the center of the literary world,” there is a poignant echo of Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard insisting that she is still big, it’s the pictures that got smaller.
Nothing gives the lie to Engdahl’s claim of European superiority more effectively than a glance at the Nobel Prize winners of the last decade or so. Even Austrians and Italians didn’t think Elfriede Jelinek and Dario Fo deserved their prizes; Harold Pinter won the prize about 40 years after his significant work was done. To suggest that these writers are more talented or accomplished than the best Americans of the last 30 years is preposterous.
Not long enough
Here’s a quote from this morning’s reading:
“We live in what is called a democracy, rule by the majority of the people. A fine ideal if it could be made to work. The people elect, but the party machines nominate, and the party machines to be effective must spend a great deal of money. Somebody has to give it to them, and that somebody, whether it be an individual, a financial group, a trade union or what have you, expects some consideration in return.”
— Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye (1953)
The Price of popcorn pimp hats
In my previous post, I mentioned how little of a crap I give for contemporary literature. There are very few works of fiction published this decade that particularly impressed me. Two of those books were Lush Life
In what seems to be an attempt at taking over the New York Sun‘s slot as Official Media Venue of Gil Roth, New York Magazine got Richard Price and Junot Diaz, the authors of those two books, to sit down for a conversation about New York City in the mag’s 40th anniversary issue. The rest of the annivesary issue looks mighty impressive, but I sat down to read this piece before any of the others.
NY: You must have seen neighborhoods evolve in all kinds of ways over the last 40 years.
RP: When you go to Harlem now, all the franchises are there—Starbucks and Linens ’n’ Things. It’s the same eight stores that are metastasized everywhere. And in neighborhoods where people have money, they’ll say, “Oh, a Starbucks, another fucking Starbucks.†But in Harlem, it’s like, ‘Hey, Starbucks, man! Häagen-Dazs and Baskin-Robbins! Yowee!†We’re all thinking There goes the neighborhood, and they’re thinking Here comes the neighborhood.
JD: Me and my girl beef about this. I know this is a weird thing to desire, but when you feel locked out of the larger culture, even if it’s a consumer-capitalist one, that’s a lot, bro. You know, there’s not a bookstore, and there’s not a place you can go if you wanna spend $5 for coffee. It weighs on people, man. It feels like you’re isolated, and you are. My girl loved it when a Starbucks opened up. But I’m one of those fuckers who’s like, “Naw, man, it’s corporate!†I’m like an idiot.
I gotta sit down and read Diaz’s short story collection somedarntime.
Dyn-o-mite!
Horace Engdahl, permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy and the lead judge for the Nobel Prize for literature, believes American writers are small-minded boobs:
“The U.S. is too isolated, too insular. They don’t translate enough and don’t really participate in the big dialogue of literature,” Engdahl said. “That ignorance is restraining.”
Or waitasecond: he is a small-minded boob. My bad.
“You would think that the permanent secretary of an academy that pretends to wisdom but has historically overlooked Proust, Joyce, and Nabokov, to name just a few non-Nobelists, would spare us the categorical lectures,” said David Remnick, editor of The New Yorker.
“And if he looked harder at the American scene that he dwells on, he would see the vitality in the generation of Roth, Updike, and DeLillo, as well as in many younger writers, some of them sons and daughters of immigrants writing in their adopted English. None of these poor souls, old or young, seem ravaged by the horrors of Coca-Cola.”
Not that I give much of a crap about contemporary literature, American or furrin.
Under the Sun
Barring a major investor jumping in during a time of financial panic, it looks like the Official Newspaper of Gil Roth will be shutting down in a week. How’s today’s Arts+ section looking?
- Victor Davis Hanson reviews Martin Creveld’s The Culture of War: “he presents himself as a Thucydidean”!
- Steven Nadler reviews Joel Kramer’s biography on the Great RaMBaM: “From Moses to Moses, there was no one like Moses”!
- Eric Ormsby reviews Fernandoz Baez’ history of the destruction of books: “Unlike Borges, who delighted in inventing titles which don’t exist (but should), Mr. Báez describes books and whole libraries that fell prey not only to fire and flood but to sheer human malevolence”. . .
- And speaking of Borges, Alberto Manguel reviews William Goldbloom Bloch’s The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges’ Library of Babel: “Mr. Bloch notes in his preface that the ideal reader of his book is Umberto Eco”!?
- Paula Deitz writes up the Venice Biennale of Architecture: “Two different exhibitions featured walls of refrigerators as stand-ins for enclosed spaces”?!
- In a rare disappointment for me, it turned out that Valerie Gladstone’s Bacon and Rothko in London does not actually involve pork products: “‘What I find amazing,’ Mr. Gale said, ‘is that even after all the preparation for this exhibition, looking at Bacon’s paintings still makes my spine tingle. I never stop being overwhelmed.'”
And a bonus! This weekend, the New York Times wrote about the Sun’s plight! While it can’t be bothered to mention the Sun’s top-notch arts coverage until a passing ref. 6 paragraphs from the end — presumably because it puts the Times’ coverage to shame — it does manage to include a quote from a writer at The Nation who called the Sun “a paper that functions as a journalistic SWAT team against individuals and institutions seen as hostile to Israel and Jews”! Awesome! Now I can miss it even more. . .
It’s the F*** Backstop!
I suppose that when I ran a link to the NYMag article on “the death of book publishing,” I should’ve made it part of my F*** You, You Whining F*** series. I failed you, dear readers.
Fortunately, Kassia Kroszer is out there as my F*** You Backstop with a good post that bashes the living crap out of that article and its synecdochal contention that “literary fiction” is book publishing. Thanks, KK!
Unrequired Reading: Sept. 19, 2008
Market timing
Two anecdotes that help me make sense (of humor) out of the Lehman Bros. bankruptcy, the Merrill Lynch buyout, the Fannie/Freddie seizure, Bear Stearns debacle and all else:
1.
Around 1991, I walked into a local-ish comic store, as is my wont. As I was checking out, I noticed that the store had the first issue of Justice League International for sale at $20. It had come out in 1987 and I had a copy at home. A semi-impoverished college student, I figured I could use a few bucks, and asked if they were buying copies of that comic.
The clerk said, “No, man. We’ve got a whole box of that issue back in the storeroom.”
“Then why are you selling it for $20?” I asked.
“Because that’s what [The Guide] says it’s worth,” he told me.
Ah: [The Guide]. I don’t recall which price guide was in vogue back then, but I think that was the beginning of the era when comic magazines were publishing revised price guides on a monthly basis.
“But [The Guide] doesn’t make money selling copies of JLI #1,” I replied. “It makes money selling copies of [The Guide]. You oughtta put ‘HALF-OFF!’ signs up and I bet you could move the whole box pretty quickly.”
“But [The Guide] says they’re worth $20!”
“It’s only worth what you can get for it,” I said. Never let it be said I didn’t learn anything from my dad.
Mark to market. That’s why Lehman Bros. went into bankruptcy while Merrill Lynch managed to get itself bought.
2.
My next-door neighbor took his stockbroker exam in October 1987. This was three days before the Black Monday collapse, in which the Dow tanked 22%. He went on to work as a substitute teacher in our high school for the next several years.
In that spirit, congratulations to Slate, which launched its new business/finance site, The Big Money, yesterday.
What It Is: 9/15/08
What I’m reading: The Long Goodbye
What I’m listening to: Beck’s Modern Guilt
What I’m watching: Your mom. There. I’ve said it. (Amy had a pretty busy week, so we didn’t get around to finishing up the last season of The Wire. Two episodes left!)
What I’m drinking: Red Stripe! Hooray beer!
What Rufus is up to: Accidentally showing up at a greyhound meet & greet! The admin of the Greyhound Friends NJ list dropped our e-mail by accident, so we didn’t know that our local pet store was hosting an event on Saturday. Coincidentally, we took Rufus up there to buy his pet food (we could’ve done it without him, but he loves going to the store), and discovered 4 or 5 greyhounds & owners in the parking-lot. Rufus, of course, was very happy to make some new friends.
Where I’m going: To the GFNJ Annual Fall Picnic/Greyhound Planet Day on Sunday in Bridgewater, NJ! My pal/co-worker Jason & his wife are picking up their grey at the picnic, so we’ll find out if their girl gets along with Rufus before we set up a playdate.
What I’m happy about: Having a quiet weekend, between pretty busy weeks.
What I’m sad about: David Foster Wallace’s suicide, even though I hadn’t read a book of his in around 10 years. (I suppose this title
What I’m pondering: How SiteMeter made so many poor decisions when it “upgraded” this weekend.