Jan 31 2009
I’ve always thought of the last half of the 20th century as belonging to Mailer, Roth, and Updike—not only for their creative faculties, but for the temperament and quantity of their output. Mailer became obsessed with the behemoth novel, trolling the backwaters of conspiracy for the great American novel he finally admitted was beyond his [...]
Jan 28 2009
Yesterday was a reminder that the best recognition a writer can receive these days is 31 seconds of air time on the evening news. The New Yorker’s obituary is a bit more complete.
Jan 27 2009
Updike was introspective without being existential, a style of writing strictly out of fashion with his contemporaries who picked and prodded at themselves with microscopes the way Updike washed in broad strokes landscapes of the suburban middle class. As I mentioned in my previous note, Rabbit Run is not my favorite of the man’s work, [...]
Jan 27 2009
Everyone is going to make a Rabbit at Rest remark at the loss of Updike, and this writer isn’t immune. While Rabbit Run isn’t one of my favorite Updike novels (the first time I read it, I skipped over most of the agonizingly slow middle), but damnit if he wasn’t one of the first, if [...]
Jan 27 2009
I don’t know Narrative and so can’t speak for their credibility. Though if the cover photo of T.C. Boyle is any indication, the magazine is suspect. Not to mention one has to “sign up” with the magazine to read full content. The New Yorker doesn’t do that. Esquire doesn’t do that. Why Narrative, unless they’re [...]
Jan 23 2009
Will Che Director Steven Soderbergh Retire in 2015? (Maybe.)
Jan 22 2009
Modern Book Publishing and Book Culture, from Time Magazine online
Jan 22 2009
Frightening and almost too close to something from a thread within a thread in an Eco novel:
What is particularly scary about Blackwater’s role in a war that President Bush labeled a “crusade” is that the company’s leading executives are dedicated to a Christian-supremacist agenda. Erik Prince and his family have provided generous funding to the [...]
Jan 18 2009
“Men die outside the library,” he said.
On creating a video diary, and one digital media short about creativity, art, and genius for the mag/blog of the author at work sketching, writing, and –in-general-working through various projects to illustrate process and the nature of process, to illustrate the dynamics of methodology and promotion.
Comprised of [...]