{"id":4323,"date":"2009-08-12T09:17:24","date_gmt":"2009-08-12T13:17:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=4323"},"modified":"2009-08-12T09:17:24","modified_gmt":"2009-08-12T13:17:24","slug":"well-0-fer-have-paris","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/well-0-fer-have-paris","title":{"rendered":"We&#8217;ll 0-fer Have Paris"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I ran the <a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-fer-of-the-week-paris-toilet\/\" target=\"_blank\">0-fer test<\/a> on the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312361750?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0312361750\">first volume<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0312361750\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> of the new <em>Paris Review<\/em> Interviews series. Since I&#8217;m utterly unimaginative, let&#8217;s go check out <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0312363141?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0312363141\">Volume 2<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0312363141\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> and see which literary titans I&#8217;ve managed to avoid completely!<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Graham Greene (1953) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I think I tried reading <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0142437980?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0142437980\">The End of the Affair<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0142437980\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>, because it inspired a good album by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B000003BJQ?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B000003BJQ\">Golden Palominos<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B000003BJQ\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/li>\n<li>James Thurber (1955) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I&#8217;m sure I read something by him, although nothing leaps to mind<\/li>\n<li>William Faulkner (1956) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read three of his novels and some short stories. And I saw <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0101410\/\" target=\"_blank\">Barton Fink<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Robert Lowell (1961) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 0-fer<\/li>\n<li>Isaac Bashevis Singer (1968) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 0-fer<\/li>\n<li>Eudora Welty (1972) &#8211; 0-fer, but I remember she dated Krusty the Klown once on an episode of <em>The Simpsons<\/em><\/li>\n<li>John Gardner (1979) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0679723110?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0679723110\">Grendel<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0679723110\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> and his adaptation of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0394740890?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0394740890\">Gilgamesh<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0394740890\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/li>\n<li>Gabriel Garcia Marquez (1981) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read him<\/li>\n<li>Philip Larkin (1982) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read 1 or 2 of his poems, after Grant Morrison referred to him while promoting a Batman comic book<\/li>\n<li>James Baldwin (1984) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 0-fer<\/li>\n<li>William Gaddis (1987) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I finished two of his novels, gave up on a third, plan to read another one someday, and once called him before I&#8217;d started reading his work, because I managed to find his phone number on a database<\/li>\n<li>Harold Bloom (1991) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read a bunch of his criticism, own a copy of his novel, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0374156441?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0374156441\">The Flight To Lucifer<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0374156441\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/> (but haven&#8217;t read it or the book it&#8217;s a sequel of, David Lindsay&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/1604591455?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1604591455\">A Voyage To Arcturus<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1604591455\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>), and also <a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/7-rooms-of-bloom\/\" target=\"_blank\">spoke to him on the phone<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Toni Morrison (1993) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d read her; I oughtta go back and see if I still like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/140003342X?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=140003342X\">Song of Solomon<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=140003342X\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><\/li>\n<li>Alice Munro (1994) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 0-fer<\/li>\n<li>Peter Carey (2006) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d 0-fer<\/li>\n<li>Stephen King (2006) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I&#8217;ve read one article by him that was adapted from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0743455967?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=virtualmemories-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0743455967\">On Writing<\/a><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0743455967\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/>; otherwise, I&#8217;m embarrassed to say that I&#8217;ve never read anything by him<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A few weeks ago, I ran the 0-fer test on the first volume of the new Paris Review Interviews series. Since I&#8217;m utterly unimaginative, let&#8217;s go check out Volume 2 and see which literary titans I&#8217;ve managed to avoid completely! Graham Greene (1953) \u00e2\u20ac\u201d I think I tried reading The End of the Affair, because &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/well-0-fer-have-paris\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;We&#8217;ll 0-fer Have Paris&#8221;<\/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":[568,26,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-0-fer","category-comics","category-literature"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4C7K-17J","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4259,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-fer-of-the-week-paris-toilet","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":0},"title":"0-fer of the Week: Paris, Toilet","author":"Gil","date":"July 29, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In Duck Soup, Groucho Marx gets locked in a bathroom by Harpo, leading him to shout, \"Let me out of here! Hey, let me out of here! Or throw me a magazine!\" For reasons I won't bother to mention, a shelf in our downstairs bathroom contains a number of essay\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0312361750","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3895,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/cinc0-fer-de-mayo","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":1},"title":"Cinc0-fer de Mayo","author":"Gil","date":"May 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In honor of \"Drink Corona (or whatever Mexican beer you choose) Day,\" I thought I'd go find some well-regarded Mexican authors whom I've never read a word of. Only having thought up this idea this morning, I decided to dive into the \"canonical appendixes\" of Harold Bloom's Western Canon, since\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1573225142","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4387,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/a-man-0-fer-all-seasons","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":2},"title":"A Man 0-fer All Seasons","author":"Gil","date":"August 26, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"This week's literary 0-fer is . . . Robert Bolt! (Technically, he's not an 0-fer, since I have seen two movies for which he wrote the screenplays: Lawrence of Arabia and The Mission. But I've neither read nor seen A Man For All Seasons, and this 0-fer gives me the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0679728228","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4136,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-fer-of-the-week-grass-unfed-edition","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":3},"title":"0-fer of the week: Grass-unfed edition","author":"Gil","date":"July 1, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"In keeping with last week's 0-fer of Ezra Pound (and as inspired tangentially by this Bourgeois Surrender post), I offer up my latest literary 0-fer: Gunter Grass! Now I really have to get back to work.","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4576,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/publishers-at-play","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":4},"title":"Publishers at Play","author":"Gil","date":"October 25, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a pretentious young man (I'm older now; but that doesn't mean I'm less pretentious), the Paris Review Writers at Work anthologies were my Bible. (Or at least my Apocrypha. My Bible was a mash-up of Tropic of Cancer and Inside the Whale.) I'd seek out the collections\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=virtualmemories-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0802131786","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3371,"url":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/0-fer-0kay","url_meta":{"origin":4323,"position":5},"title":"0-fer 0kay!","author":"Gil","date":"February 5, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Whew!","rel":"","context":"In &quot;0-fer&quot;","block_context":{"text":"0-fer","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/category\/literature\/0-fer"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","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=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4324,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions\/4324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}