of late, it's come to our attention that "looking good in pants" has become disproportionately "bookish," and in light of that (granted, still very cultural) bias, we're reminded again of our responsibility to reporting on portland culture, our original raison d'etre. our return to our roots this time is admittedly a stretch, but to the extent that portland still lines up once a month for the soul night meat market, it's not without justification that we take it back to the numero group, a chicago based record label that specializes in the re-release of minor soul and blues music, a label with personal connections to columbus, ohio, the origin of our exodus to portland.
according to this article in the other paper, a colubmus indie weekly, it seems to have happened that ryan gosling was in possession of a compilation issued by numero, one track of which, "you and me," he had featured in his recent award nominated film, "blue valentine." i myself was won over by the scratchy doo-wop style of that track and made a specific point of waiting for the music credits when i saw the film (i amateurishly guessed carole king for at least the songwriting), and was disappointed to read that the song was credited to penny and the quarters, and act of which i knew absolutely nothing.
no one else seems to know anything about them either. dante carfagna, the columbus native who introduced his friend, a co-owner of numero, to "you and me" acquired it in a buy of tapes that were originally purchased at an estate sale for clem price, the owner of prix, a bygone columbus record label. of all of the boxes of music that carfagna got in that buy, the only one for which he wasn't able to confirm biographical information was the one that contained music by penny.
as a result of the popularity of "blue valentine," penny and her compatriots are now ringing up royalties (already more than one thousand dollars), but numero's owners haven't any idea to whom to write a check. but then, just yesterday, the columbus dispatch ran a story on a possible lead: "the female voice in a mysterious song from the 1970s that's making waves in a new movie might be that of a former columbus schoolteacher." after the story of "you and me" started riding the press waves, the dispatch interviewed the surviving siblings of that schoolteacher, barbara sue mccarrol, and, "although they can't be certain...[they] say the unidentified vocalist...sounds awfully familiar." the twist? mccarroll died at the end of this past december after a long battle with cancer.
mccarroll's brother and sisters are probably on the up and up and are probably happier that their sister is finally getting some overdue recognition than they are interested in claiming her share of her group's fame for themselves. i can't, however, help but wonder if they aren't trying to pull an "annie." that little orphan was a cash cow, and miss hannigan knew it. numero ain't no daddy warbucks, but i wouldn't knock mccarroll's siblings for scouring their attics for what may prove to be the silver locket in their own family drama. we're not here to cast aspersions. at this point, we're really only wondering who will reprise carol burnett's role in the movie. even if whoever it is doesn't tug your heartstrings as expertly as this story has, we're sure that the screen adaptation will have some killer musical numbers.
and barbara: whether or not it's you in "you and me," rest in peace. no doubt you had some pipes.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Thursday, February 3, 2011
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE TWO HEADED COIN
early last month, scott esposito of "conversational reading" posted his interview with charlotte mandell, translator of zone by mathias énard, a book that i had just begun reading at the time but which i appreciated greatly, in no small way aided by mandell's fluid translation of what is for most intents and purposes a single sentence of over 500 pages. thankfully, the interview acknowledged the long sentence for the challenge it might have presented for the interviewee as a translator, but didn't dwell on it as much of the critical discussion surrounding zone has done since its publication in english translation. perhaps more on that interview later.
but enough for now. although i had every intention of expounding on that interview here today, i could only remember that i'd come across it via hyperlink at "maîtresse," and when i visited that blog to follow it again to esposito's, i came across a newer post on the orhan pamuk interview that was covered here last week (and on the same day as it was discussed at "maîtresse"). that post quickly consumed my attention. the take there:
i don't think that pamuk implies anything of the sort. the maîtresse reads and writes in french as well as in english. my own experience is in japanese. both of those languages get (widely construed) a wide variety of literature in translation. i've even lamented at this blog that i'm not able to share some of my favorite works of japanese literature with many of my friends in america because those works are only available in japanese or in french. the criticism shouldn't be that pamuk regards the anglophone book world too highly, but that the anglophone book world insulates itself too much in its own high regard. the problem is that less major writing from more marginalized sources goes completely unread here simply because of how relatively few books we translate and the decisions that are forced by that condition. as a reader, i'm certainly not trivializing the importance of a writer being read in his or her native language just because i'd like to be exposed to his or her writing. and that the writers we do translate are "provincialized" in reviews as nothing more than representatives of their countries is an unfortunate symptom of a book culture that may only know one or a few authors of a certain national origin.
what's more, pamuk was being interviewed by the guardian, an anglophone publication, and it seems obvious that he would react to what he saw as a fault of the dialogue on literature in the anglophone world. i suspect that his comments might have been different had he been speaking to le monde. i'll leave it to "maîtresse" to determine whether critics in france (quoting pamuk in reference to critics in the u.s. and britain), "say that this turkish writer writes very interesting things about turkish love," or allow pamuk's love to, "be general."
i did agree with "maîtresse" on one basic point (although, sadly, i don't think "the horse is dead" yet on the fundamental conversation on whether or not we should simply translate more, at least not in america): "we need new ways of thinking about world literature that don't presuppose the anglophone world to be the center of anything." indeed. but i don't understand why we can't agree that opening that world to more literature in translation would also further the dialogue that would give the lie to the problematic presupposition. unless, that is, we're to be ostracized and cut off from world literature entirely, in which case i might have to admit that we deserve it.
but enough for now. although i had every intention of expounding on that interview here today, i could only remember that i'd come across it via hyperlink at "maîtresse," and when i visited that blog to follow it again to esposito's, i came across a newer post on the orhan pamuk interview that was covered here last week (and on the same day as it was discussed at "maîtresse"). that post quickly consumed my attention. the take there:
the problematic part is that pamuk implies that the anglophone literary world is the only world that really counts, and if you don't publish in english it's as if you don't publish at all. "...their work is rarely translated and never read." as if to have one's work read only by other speakers of your native language is about the same as no one reading it at all...
so he's arguing that non-anglophone writers need to be translated into english to be "read" (by anglophones, who it would seem are the only readers that matter). but then he's complaining that once translated, those writers are treated as representatives of their countries in ways they find limiting...
but how can a work in translation not be treated as a work in translation, and therefore as a representative of another culture? especially if a plea is being made to translate more for the sake of translating more? to what extent is Pamuk suggesting we erase cultural difference in the service of literature?
i don't think that pamuk implies anything of the sort. the maîtresse reads and writes in french as well as in english. my own experience is in japanese. both of those languages get (widely construed) a wide variety of literature in translation. i've even lamented at this blog that i'm not able to share some of my favorite works of japanese literature with many of my friends in america because those works are only available in japanese or in french. the criticism shouldn't be that pamuk regards the anglophone book world too highly, but that the anglophone book world insulates itself too much in its own high regard. the problem is that less major writing from more marginalized sources goes completely unread here simply because of how relatively few books we translate and the decisions that are forced by that condition. as a reader, i'm certainly not trivializing the importance of a writer being read in his or her native language just because i'd like to be exposed to his or her writing. and that the writers we do translate are "provincialized" in reviews as nothing more than representatives of their countries is an unfortunate symptom of a book culture that may only know one or a few authors of a certain national origin.
what's more, pamuk was being interviewed by the guardian, an anglophone publication, and it seems obvious that he would react to what he saw as a fault of the dialogue on literature in the anglophone world. i suspect that his comments might have been different had he been speaking to le monde. i'll leave it to "maîtresse" to determine whether critics in france (quoting pamuk in reference to critics in the u.s. and britain), "say that this turkish writer writes very interesting things about turkish love," or allow pamuk's love to, "be general."
i did agree with "maîtresse" on one basic point (although, sadly, i don't think "the horse is dead" yet on the fundamental conversation on whether or not we should simply translate more, at least not in america): "we need new ways of thinking about world literature that don't presuppose the anglophone world to be the center of anything." indeed. but i don't understand why we can't agree that opening that world to more literature in translation would also further the dialogue that would give the lie to the problematic presupposition. unless, that is, we're to be ostracized and cut off from world literature entirely, in which case i might have to admit that we deserve it.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
FANNING THE FLAMES, part 5; or, IT'S NOT OVER UNTIL IT'S OVER
now that tao lin and i are "friends," i have to be careful expressing my opinions on his writing, not so much for fear that i would compensate for presumptions on the effect of our relationship on the degree of my positivity, but because i'm afraid that readers would expect that sort of compensation and thereby not necessarily interpret my statements as sufficiently or genuinely negative. looking back, i judge my previous treatment of lin (in parts 2, 3 and 4) to have been admirably fair -- even when skeptical -- but all of those other posts were written before i met the man himself, on which evening he learned from our conversation that i'd studied japanese literature, which then prompted him to inquire after my favorite authors, a difficult inquiry in that i hadn't actually met any of them, but i answered that, as far as contemporary authors, i appreciated ryū murakami, to which he responded that he had been asked to write a long essay for "thought catalog" on almost transparent blue.
that essay was posted yesterday. it's long. and why? in his own words, lin wanted to, "'exploit' my natural interest and write the 'end-all' english essay," on the book. this murakami certainly hasn't been read enough thanks to the other one, who's been much more extensively translated and enjoys a wide popularity (which lin, seemingly a fan, acknowledges), but he has been critically discussed even more seldom, at least outside of academia, despite his being a seminal writer and critic in japan of a status at least equivalent to the other murakami's. so, despite lin's good intentions and obvious fondness for the book, i would hate for this newly opened dialogue to end here, and can't help but think it pompous for someone who's only read one of ryū murakami's books to call the end.
granted, i sympathized with most of lin's take on the tone of the book, which he described as being imbued with the "mysteriousness" with which its first person narrator experiences his world. the narrator's delivery is always calm and intensely observant, even amidst an orgy or another character's drug induced frenzy in a tomato field in the rain, a blank stare rather than a directed vision. in contrast to other less abstract works, lin saw "almost transparent blue...more like 'this is something that happened from the perspective of one character, who viewed their own thoughts and feelings also as "things that happened," and so did not attempt to interpret them for himself or an imaginary other.'" lin also effectively describes the layeredness of the tone, which evokes the simultaneity of the narrator's physical and emotional experience, both inwardly and outwardly directed.
however, as much as his discussion of tone seems to hint at it (he writes of the narrator: "i am willing to include things the character might not have noticed, in the moment, with their full attention, but i will not include things the character was completely unaware of or didn’t think or feel or know at the time"), lin doesn't break through to what i think is possibly the most compelling element of almost transparent blue: the near complete dissociation of the first person narrator from the first person character. i don't have the book in front of me and haven't read it for years -- which probably disqualifies me from writing any sort of criticism -- but i'm almost absolutely certain that at one point, in a train on the way to a rock concert, i think, the narrator lapses and mentions himself in the third person. many of murakami's books are driven by manipulation of perspective (sometimes solely, as in the case of the quasi-sequel to almost transparent blue in which settings change based on the application of imagination to the end of some line of sight originating in the immediate action), and the calming effect of the almost overstatedly detailed (but not absurd or bathetic) descriptions of the narrator in almost transparent blue amidst the tumult of his character's surroundings are representative of murakami's keen attention that element of his writing.
and crap. i'm almost at 700 words, the length of the paraphrase and commentary piece that lin originally planned for his review of almost transparent blue. i'll take myself to task in deference to lin's effort and impose a word limit on myself. shying away? absolutely not. i didn't even have time to talk about the black bird! tao! you should have brought that bit out of your "miscellaneous notes" and expounded. i think it was important.
762. damn. ironically, i won't even finish under 800 if i try to explain that i very much sympathize with lin's difficulty in getting his essay to "lead somewhere." like him, "i felt, throughout, that i could write much more...ten times as much...and still feel like i was misrepresenting, simplifying, or blocking out certain aspects of the book." but then where's the "end-all"? of course, that term was in quotation marks in lin's essay as well, which probably means he meant it less certainly, perhaps even as a challenge to elicit contrary opinions. or maybe he just really wanted his essay to go viral, in which case i'm abetting him regardless of any criticism. should it bother me, though, that most of the response will be praise? just because he's written some books?
i've had at least five copies of that book over the years and at one time had one of them almost always on me. i'm going directly from the keyboard to powell's to get that second edition from the japanese section. but should i let pride stop me from encouraging the spread of something that will probably encourage a decently large group of people (and young, taste making people) to read a work of literature in translation? and one of my favorites at that? that's going to be how it sounds, because i only gave myself 700 words. or lin did, anyway, and that's 1000.
that essay was posted yesterday. it's long. and why? in his own words, lin wanted to, "'exploit' my natural interest and write the 'end-all' english essay," on the book. this murakami certainly hasn't been read enough thanks to the other one, who's been much more extensively translated and enjoys a wide popularity (which lin, seemingly a fan, acknowledges), but he has been critically discussed even more seldom, at least outside of academia, despite his being a seminal writer and critic in japan of a status at least equivalent to the other murakami's. so, despite lin's good intentions and obvious fondness for the book, i would hate for this newly opened dialogue to end here, and can't help but think it pompous for someone who's only read one of ryū murakami's books to call the end.
granted, i sympathized with most of lin's take on the tone of the book, which he described as being imbued with the "mysteriousness" with which its first person narrator experiences his world. the narrator's delivery is always calm and intensely observant, even amidst an orgy or another character's drug induced frenzy in a tomato field in the rain, a blank stare rather than a directed vision. in contrast to other less abstract works, lin saw "almost transparent blue...more like 'this is something that happened from the perspective of one character, who viewed their own thoughts and feelings also as "things that happened," and so did not attempt to interpret them for himself or an imaginary other.'" lin also effectively describes the layeredness of the tone, which evokes the simultaneity of the narrator's physical and emotional experience, both inwardly and outwardly directed.
however, as much as his discussion of tone seems to hint at it (he writes of the narrator: "i am willing to include things the character might not have noticed, in the moment, with their full attention, but i will not include things the character was completely unaware of or didn’t think or feel or know at the time"), lin doesn't break through to what i think is possibly the most compelling element of almost transparent blue: the near complete dissociation of the first person narrator from the first person character. i don't have the book in front of me and haven't read it for years -- which probably disqualifies me from writing any sort of criticism -- but i'm almost absolutely certain that at one point, in a train on the way to a rock concert, i think, the narrator lapses and mentions himself in the third person. many of murakami's books are driven by manipulation of perspective (sometimes solely, as in the case of the quasi-sequel to almost transparent blue in which settings change based on the application of imagination to the end of some line of sight originating in the immediate action), and the calming effect of the almost overstatedly detailed (but not absurd or bathetic) descriptions of the narrator in almost transparent blue amidst the tumult of his character's surroundings are representative of murakami's keen attention that element of his writing.
and crap. i'm almost at 700 words, the length of the paraphrase and commentary piece that lin originally planned for his review of almost transparent blue. i'll take myself to task in deference to lin's effort and impose a word limit on myself. shying away? absolutely not. i didn't even have time to talk about the black bird! tao! you should have brought that bit out of your "miscellaneous notes" and expounded. i think it was important.
762. damn. ironically, i won't even finish under 800 if i try to explain that i very much sympathize with lin's difficulty in getting his essay to "lead somewhere." like him, "i felt, throughout, that i could write much more...ten times as much...and still feel like i was misrepresenting, simplifying, or blocking out certain aspects of the book." but then where's the "end-all"? of course, that term was in quotation marks in lin's essay as well, which probably means he meant it less certainly, perhaps even as a challenge to elicit contrary opinions. or maybe he just really wanted his essay to go viral, in which case i'm abetting him regardless of any criticism. should it bother me, though, that most of the response will be praise? just because he's written some books?
i've had at least five copies of that book over the years and at one time had one of them almost always on me. i'm going directly from the keyboard to powell's to get that second edition from the japanese section. but should i let pride stop me from encouraging the spread of something that will probably encourage a decently large group of people (and young, taste making people) to read a work of literature in translation? and one of my favorites at that? that's going to be how it sounds, because i only gave myself 700 words. or lin did, anyway, and that's 1000.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
PONTIFICATION FROM THE PORCELAIN THRONE; or, ON POSTURE
yesterday evening, i spent quite a bit of time between dinner and dessert in the bathroom. my friend and hostess had a copy of playboy from april of 1964 near the toilet, and although i found out a short bit later that she'd bought it at cameron's downtown for the peter sellers' spread, it was the interview with jean genet -- seemingly his first from what the interviewer wrote in his introduction -- that held my attention after i had glanced over the ad photos of all those handsome sixties dandies in their slim suits. i didn't, however, finish the interview, because, entertained though i was, i had started to notice how long i'd been away from the table, which meant that suspicions were probably mounting back in the kitchen.
of genet's works i've only read "the maids" and "deathwatch" (because the latter was collected in the same volume as the first) and a bit of querelle of brest before giving myself over to the film adaptation. i'd been on a fassbinder kick at the time, and brad davis' chest was much more exciting than genet's prose in that book, my copy of which was of an exceptionally uninteresting design and with too densely packed text. (searching "querelle" just now for image results i find ample (really, very ample) pictures of davis and also realize that the image on the front jacket of the faber & faber edition of trisan garcia's hate: a romance was originally an illustration done by warhol which was used for the movie poster of fassbinder's film.) i once briefly owned a copy of our lady of the flowers, but it was inside of a bag of mine that was stolen a few years ago, a bag that also contained my passport (full except for one visa page) and a notebook of translation attempts. my money clip and my digital music player were on my person when the bag was taken, so the bag and everything in it (that brown polo i liked so much was in there too!) probably made it quickly to the trash.
so it wasn't so much genet that interested me as an interview with genet in playboy, a magazine with which i hadn't had much contact, although i certainly remembered hearing jokes about men who bought it "for the articles," which from my bathroom encounter did in fact seem to be quality, that april 1964 issue having also had an editorial on the kinsey report by hugh heffner who argued in it that the widespread persistence of homosexuality throughout history should be proof enough that homosexual practice wouldn't undermine the viability of the human species or its family units. i sat back down to the table wondering why there weren't smarter more literary periodicals for men who liked men. playboy seems (from my bathroom encounter) to have been, in a way, the "gay playboy" of a certain era (and to clarify, i'm concerned with quality content in a sex driven lifestyle magazine and not the sex driven content in particular), but what magazine fit that niche today? apparently (according to my hostess), playboy hasn't been much for at least a decade now and so doesn't fill that niche itself anymore. playboy wasn't, in other words, playboy anymore. it wouldn't have excerpted nabokov's posthumous novel, so whether any racier gay magazine did or would have was outside my comparison.
dessert was delightful: ice cream topped with shaved chocolate and almonds, served with cinnamon dusted molasses cookies, suitable to the theme of the fajitas and millet a la spanish rice that were served earlier, even if the zither music (which sounded about to launch into "happy birthday" in every song) wasn't. but, we could only listen to the two more appropriate records so many times, and the zither record was appropriate in its own way to a conversation about playboy in the sixties.
i didn't go back to the toilet to continue the interview. i did go back to the toilet, just not to read. genet had been a point of departure, but i'd been stupefied, blissfully, by the end of the meal and the wine (now also finished) and wanted to let the conversation carry on as it pleased from there. i needed time to process dinner.
it might maybe have been better to accept the invitation and stay the night. i could have borrowed that robe again, so short on me that i would have felt in real mid-century homosexual character as i drifted off with a book on the couch; but i chose a cold ride home over an earlier morning. if it's not the rain in this city, it's the goddamn east wind. my feet were completely numb by the time i made it across town, and all i could think about as they painfully defrosted under a couple of blankets was conscription, winter warfare, forced marches and frostbite. voluntary military service: what a blessing. that's freedom (and i imagine that mr. franzen's book reads something like this post). if i were being forced to march in the snow on feet that cold i'd probably break ranks just to get the bullet. it didn't take much to sympathize then with genet the deserter. i should have borrowed that magazine. no way i was finishing querelle before bed.
of genet's works i've only read "the maids" and "deathwatch" (because the latter was collected in the same volume as the first) and a bit of querelle of brest before giving myself over to the film adaptation. i'd been on a fassbinder kick at the time, and brad davis' chest was much more exciting than genet's prose in that book, my copy of which was of an exceptionally uninteresting design and with too densely packed text. (searching "querelle" just now for image results i find ample (really, very ample) pictures of davis and also realize that the image on the front jacket of the faber & faber edition of trisan garcia's hate: a romance was originally an illustration done by warhol which was used for the movie poster of fassbinder's film.) i once briefly owned a copy of our lady of the flowers, but it was inside of a bag of mine that was stolen a few years ago, a bag that also contained my passport (full except for one visa page) and a notebook of translation attempts. my money clip and my digital music player were on my person when the bag was taken, so the bag and everything in it (that brown polo i liked so much was in there too!) probably made it quickly to the trash.
so it wasn't so much genet that interested me as an interview with genet in playboy, a magazine with which i hadn't had much contact, although i certainly remembered hearing jokes about men who bought it "for the articles," which from my bathroom encounter did in fact seem to be quality, that april 1964 issue having also had an editorial on the kinsey report by hugh heffner who argued in it that the widespread persistence of homosexuality throughout history should be proof enough that homosexual practice wouldn't undermine the viability of the human species or its family units. i sat back down to the table wondering why there weren't smarter more literary periodicals for men who liked men. playboy seems (from my bathroom encounter) to have been, in a way, the "gay playboy" of a certain era (and to clarify, i'm concerned with quality content in a sex driven lifestyle magazine and not the sex driven content in particular), but what magazine fit that niche today? apparently (according to my hostess), playboy hasn't been much for at least a decade now and so doesn't fill that niche itself anymore. playboy wasn't, in other words, playboy anymore. it wouldn't have excerpted nabokov's posthumous novel, so whether any racier gay magazine did or would have was outside my comparison.
dessert was delightful: ice cream topped with shaved chocolate and almonds, served with cinnamon dusted molasses cookies, suitable to the theme of the fajitas and millet a la spanish rice that were served earlier, even if the zither music (which sounded about to launch into "happy birthday" in every song) wasn't. but, we could only listen to the two more appropriate records so many times, and the zither record was appropriate in its own way to a conversation about playboy in the sixties.
i didn't go back to the toilet to continue the interview. i did go back to the toilet, just not to read. genet had been a point of departure, but i'd been stupefied, blissfully, by the end of the meal and the wine (now also finished) and wanted to let the conversation carry on as it pleased from there. i needed time to process dinner.
it might maybe have been better to accept the invitation and stay the night. i could have borrowed that robe again, so short on me that i would have felt in real mid-century homosexual character as i drifted off with a book on the couch; but i chose a cold ride home over an earlier morning. if it's not the rain in this city, it's the goddamn east wind. my feet were completely numb by the time i made it across town, and all i could think about as they painfully defrosted under a couple of blankets was conscription, winter warfare, forced marches and frostbite. voluntary military service: what a blessing. that's freedom (and i imagine that mr. franzen's book reads something like this post). if i were being forced to march in the snow on feet that cold i'd probably break ranks just to get the bullet. it didn't take much to sympathize then with genet the deserter. i should have borrowed that magazine. no way i was finishing querelle before bed.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
IT'S HAPPENING TONIGHT; or, FOR THE RECORD
the literary drunk: a description of both the event and its participants. it's exciting, and it's happening tonight. i'm also excited to get a new stack of translated novels for review and speculation -- but not of the financial sort, because although i'll gladly buy an unedited proof if i find one of interest on the shelves, you won't find me selling mine, literary drunk or not.
then, what luck! i'm led to this guardian article that cites a complaint from nobelist orhan pamuk that, "the majority of human experience is being ignored because the literature that describes it is not written in english." "even other major european languages find it difficult to get an english audience for their work," pamuk was quoted at a literary festival in jaipur. "the english are famously tardy and unreceptive towards other languages, and it is particularly hard to get american publishing houses to take on translations." here, here. we'll toast you tonight. (i don't, however, think i'll have time for the museum of innocence any time soon. from your comments i understand that you'd prefer we work to illuminate more marginalized works.)
but also wait: pamuk, well known and widely read in translation, "also accused literary critics of constantly trying to 'provincialise' his work." an inspiring call to arms but also a caution against carelessness in my speculation. thank you, mr. pamuk. you'll get your name on another round.
thank you also for winning that prize. i bought the black book only a couple of months before the announcement, and now a copy of the same edition(?) i have is behind glass for $75.00 at powell's. an unedited proof. a smart buy. maybe i'll have to reconsider that will to sell. but not for the record.
then, what luck! i'm led to this guardian article that cites a complaint from nobelist orhan pamuk that, "the majority of human experience is being ignored because the literature that describes it is not written in english." "even other major european languages find it difficult to get an english audience for their work," pamuk was quoted at a literary festival in jaipur. "the english are famously tardy and unreceptive towards other languages, and it is particularly hard to get american publishing houses to take on translations." here, here. we'll toast you tonight. (i don't, however, think i'll have time for the museum of innocence any time soon. from your comments i understand that you'd prefer we work to illuminate more marginalized works.)
but also wait: pamuk, well known and widely read in translation, "also accused literary critics of constantly trying to 'provincialise' his work." an inspiring call to arms but also a caution against carelessness in my speculation. thank you, mr. pamuk. you'll get your name on another round.
thank you also for winning that prize. i bought the black book only a couple of months before the announcement, and now a copy of the same edition(?) i have is behind glass for $75.00 at powell's. an unedited proof. a smart buy. maybe i'll have to reconsider that will to sell. but not for the record.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
HOW TO MAKE A DELICIOUS MEAL FROM WHATEVER YOU FIND LYING AROUND
having been reminded of patrick mccabe's breakfast on pluto in conversation on thursday evening, i went to powell's on friday hoping to find a used copy of winterwood, the only of mccabe's novels that i hadn't read, an economic opportunity cost decision that i made based on sad reviews at the time of the book's initial release. there were none on the shelves, used or otherwise, probably for the same reason that all of the author's other books were available at deep discounts: winterwood was probably just a rehash written at the less creative end of a once pertinent and well esteemed writer's long term publishing contract, and it probably wasn't very good. i remembered, however, that the current issue of the paris review included a new translation of a novella by péter nádas, and having also recently been in discussion about this other author's work after being returned the copy of love that i had lent to a neighbor, i consoled myself with taking the last copy of that magazine to the cafe to read another work of possible interest and justify my trip. whether it was the coffee or the frenzy of the bookstore on a friday evening was another night's distraction, but i was only able to finish about twenty pages of the novella. luckily there were other of nádas' works on the shelves for less than the twelve dollars i needed to buy that copy of the review (i'm an awfully hypocritical advocate of print culture), and, although i should have endeavored to tackle a book of memories for its seeming similarity with a french novel i'd recently appreciated, i left powell's with a lovely tale of photography, a lovely and much shorter book for seven ninety-five. it was short, yes, but just as difficult to read casually as love (which makes me anxious for ever tackling the several hundred pages of a book of memories), and i should now rightly be writing on my ideas on "the novel of perspective" as typified by péter nádas in the two works of his that i've read, but a recent dream about kyoto has me instead diverted to reading 『密閉都市のトリニティー』 by toba shin, a professor at the university of kyoto who taught the friend of mine that recommended me his book. a near future sci-fi about the quarantine of a city in the aftermath of a chemical attack that mars the afflicted with an std that shows itself in transmission as the mark of cain is wonderfully distracting, but it's no lighter than the burden of any other task at hand. but now the task is this one, and i'll abandon the more rigorous writing until another time, although it's true that the original task departed from just as casual a connection as the one that has me reading shin, and, as such, i shouldn't really see it as having been abandoned at all. tonight, for as long as i can stay awake, i'm living in memoriam.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
REMEMBERING THE BOOK; or, HOW TO ENJOY HUMBLE PIE
"remember books? those are the things literary journalists used to write about before they became obsessed with bullshit stories about technology and search engine optimization and 'the long tail.'" literary journalist michael schaub weighs in. (and here we are wasting time smearing vooks.)
as schaub reports at the bookslut blog, microcosm publishing here in portland is exchanging real books and zines for unwanted amazon kindles. i mean, they're history anyway. everyone's waiting for the nook 2.
is it ironic that we led with the statement we did and are now giving you a bullshit story about technology instead of writing about books? no. there's a fine line in that quote, and if you can't see it, you probably need to adjust the brightness on your kindle. also not ironic: wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a plaid wool button-up with elbow patches (and almost everything else you call ironic). if i'd felt comfortable showing up at dinner empty handed i would have thrown my bottle of wine at that guy who yelled at me from out of his subaru. i'm sure he loved "portlandia." i'm glad i stayed calm, i might've soiled my oregon tuxedo running away.
speaking of books, though, "the morning news" selection committee recently announced the contenders in this year's tournament of books (presented by field notes and sponsored by powell's books). as per the official announcement, the list of titles,
so it would seem that we'd be off the hook for not having read any of them, which is hugely relieving considering that whole aimee bender rigmarole of last summer and that her book the particular sadness of lemon cake is at the top of the list of contenders. if you've read one of the books on the list, you can vote for it as part of the "zombie vote" portion of the contest. if you haven't, i suppose you could make an educated guess. just ask yourself what a zombie would do. hopefully we'll see you on the official judges panel next year, because, well, if anything we've proven our ability to remain unbiased. and million dollar babies don't cry shouldn't be ready for publication until at least 2012.
update, 7:14 p.m.: i don't feel so bad spending time harping on the vook after reading a post at "conversational reading" entitled "worst lede ever," which refers to and excerpts an article from the new york times written by a "slavish fan" of the kindle in support of the merging of video and text. the "conversational reading" post also links to a critical response to the times article by chad post at "three percent," the blog of open letter press, the university of rochester's non-profit translation imprint, a not surprising association seeing as scott esposito (who is "conventional reading") specializes in writing reviews of translated literature for publishers weekly. good company.
but, ultimately, this post ends as a bullshit story about technology, despite my sort of efforts to save it. sorry, michael. i promise that it's all in good remembrance of the book.
as schaub reports at the bookslut blog, microcosm publishing here in portland is exchanging real books and zines for unwanted amazon kindles. i mean, they're history anyway. everyone's waiting for the nook 2.
is it ironic that we led with the statement we did and are now giving you a bullshit story about technology instead of writing about books? no. there's a fine line in that quote, and if you can't see it, you probably need to adjust the brightness on your kindle. also not ironic: wearing a hooded sweatshirt under a plaid wool button-up with elbow patches (and almost everything else you call ironic). if i'd felt comfortable showing up at dinner empty handed i would have thrown my bottle of wine at that guy who yelled at me from out of his subaru. i'm sure he loved "portlandia." i'm glad i stayed calm, i might've soiled my oregon tuxedo running away.
speaking of books, though, "the morning news" selection committee recently announced the contenders in this year's tournament of books (presented by field notes and sponsored by powell's books). as per the official announcement, the list of titles,
is not a list of the best novels of 2010. the novel had an incredible year, in our opinion, but this is not even a list of our favorite books from 2010. because compiling such a list would be absurd. even collectively we have read only a tiny fraction of the books published last year. we haven’t even read all the books on the rooster list, at least not yet.
each of these books was chosen because it was hyped. or celebrated. or not celebrated or hyped enough. or because it won an award. or because an individual (or individuals) we admire lobbied passionately for its inclusion.
so it would seem that we'd be off the hook for not having read any of them, which is hugely relieving considering that whole aimee bender rigmarole of last summer and that her book the particular sadness of lemon cake is at the top of the list of contenders. if you've read one of the books on the list, you can vote for it as part of the "zombie vote" portion of the contest. if you haven't, i suppose you could make an educated guess. just ask yourself what a zombie would do. hopefully we'll see you on the official judges panel next year, because, well, if anything we've proven our ability to remain unbiased. and million dollar babies don't cry shouldn't be ready for publication until at least 2012.
update, 7:14 p.m.: i don't feel so bad spending time harping on the vook after reading a post at "conversational reading" entitled "worst lede ever," which refers to and excerpts an article from the new york times written by a "slavish fan" of the kindle in support of the merging of video and text. the "conversational reading" post also links to a critical response to the times article by chad post at "three percent," the blog of open letter press, the university of rochester's non-profit translation imprint, a not surprising association seeing as scott esposito (who is "conventional reading") specializes in writing reviews of translated literature for publishers weekly. good company.
but, ultimately, this post ends as a bullshit story about technology, despite my sort of efforts to save it. sorry, michael. i promise that it's all in good remembrance of the book.
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