{"id":2606,"date":"2008-10-04T10:42:54","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T14:42:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=2606"},"modified":"2008-10-04T10:42:54","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T14:42:54","slug":"pale-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/pale-fire","title":{"rendered":"Pale Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Adam Kirsch, my favorite book critic at the now-defunct New York Sun<\/em><\/a>, 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<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Kirsch’s first post-Sun<\/em> item is on the idiocy of Horace Engdahl,<\/a> that Nobel literary judge who recently remarked that American writers are too insular to measure up on the world stage<\/a>. Sez Kirsch:<\/p>\n

As long as America could still be regarded as Europe’s backwater\u00e2\u20ac\u201das long as a poet like T.S. Eliot had to leave America for England in order to become famous enough to win the Nobel\u00e2\u20ac\u201dit 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Read the whole thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Pale Fire”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[295,357,128],"class_list":["post-2606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literature","tag-adam-kirsch","tag-horace-engdahl","tag-new-york-sun"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-G2","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2586,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/dyn-o-mite","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":0},"title":"Dyn-o-mite!","author":"Gil","date":"October 1, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "literature"","block_context":{"text":"literature","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2479,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/poesiealbum","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":1},"title":"Poesiealbum","author":"Gil","date":"September 17, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll sure miss the NYSun when it closes up shop at the end of the month (barring a buyer who's willing to lose a bunch of money). Today's gem is Against Oblivion, Adam Kirsch's review of The Terezin Album of Marianka Zadikow. I can't do it justice, so go read\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"adam kirsch\"","block_context":{"text":"adam kirsch","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/adam-kirsch"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3762,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-apr-10-2009","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":2},"title":"Unrequired Reading: Apr. 10, 2009","author":"Gil","date":"April 10, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"These links are kosher for Passover! (No, they're not.) Just click \"more\"! Thank gosh! I was afraid Jews were becoming underrepresented in contemporary American literature! * * * Adam McKay's elegy for the Anchorman! * * * Roger Ebert's elegy for the newspaperman! * * * If Hugh Laurie won't\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2378,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/league-of-extraordinary-gentlemen","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":3},"title":"League of Extraordinary Gentlemen","author":"Gil","date":"September 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm a little busy this morning, dear readers; gotta put together an advertising promo for our October ish and finish laying out the 50-page guide for our annual conference. Also, I'm hoping to finish a slightly longer post tonight called Tabloid Dreams and the Plastic People of the Universe (which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"adam kirsch\"","block_context":{"text":"adam kirsch","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/tag\/adam-kirsch"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5558,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-august-27-2010","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":4},"title":"Unrequired Reading: August 27, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"August 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's been a long week at work, dear readers, but that won't stop me from bringing you an awesome collection of weird links. Let's start off this week's installment with a bang! * * * Let's go from near-death in a lab to death in a classroom. * * *\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Classic Comics Criticism"","block_context":{"text":"Classic Comics Criticism","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/classic-comics-criticism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5778,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/unrequired-reading-december-3-2010","url_meta":{"origin":2606,"position":5},"title":"Unrequired Reading: December 3, 2010","author":"Gil","date":"December 3, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It's our Hanukkah edition of Unrequired Reading! Lots of Jewish posts for you to check out! Jewp it up! * * * Zarkov, tell me more about this man,\u00c2\u00a0Jewdini. * * * Everyone farts. Even Jews. * * * Jewcheology! (with the added bonus of the line, \"As Eilat Mazar\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "basketball"","block_context":{"text":"basketball","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/sports\/basketball"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2606"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2607,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2606\/revisions\/2607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}