Choice Gleanings from the Times Book Review
As he writes about old men failing at sex, and raging about failing at sex, we see the old writer failing at writing about sex, which is, of course, a spectacle much more heartbreaking. […] The younger writers are so self-conscious, so steeped in a certain kind of liberal education, that their characters can’t condone even their own sexual impulses; they are, in short, too cool for sex. Even the mildest display of male aggression is a sign of being overly hopeful, overly earnest or politically untoward. For a character to feel himself, even fleetingly, a conquering hero is somehow passé.
from The Naked and the Conflicted: Sex and the American Male Novelist, by Katie Roiphe. If you like her article, she’s also on the podcast.
Also in the Review this weekend- the magnificent Arthur C. Danto, on a new book about Tiepolo, the legendary Frank Kermode on a new translation of the Hebrew Bible by David Rosenberg, and the Nonfiction Chronicle is rather unkind to Daniel Nester, though I can sort of see using ” ‘He’s Annoying’ –The New York Times” as a blurb. Chuck Klosterman and Stephen Elliott don’t fare much better. Seems like the only book Gregory Beyer liked was Richard Rushfield’s memoir of attending Hampshire College in the late ’80s. Yeah.
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January 2nd, 2010 / 4:28 pm
January 2nd, 2010 / 4:28 pm
Massumi and Malbec: A Virtual Reading Group
A few weeks ago, in the comments section of my post on affect, Roxane brought up the idea of having a reading group for Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation by Brian Massumi. She also said her teacher advised reading Massumi alongside wine; her suggestion was a complex red. Thus Massumi and Malbec.
My copy is now in hand, so I’m ready. But to give others a bit more time, let’s say we’ll discuss the intro and chapter one (“The Autonomy of Affect”) in roughly two weeks. So if you’d like to participate, order the book and read those sections by Saturday, January 16.
My other thought is that a different person might profitably lead the discussion for each chapter, on a chapter per week schedule. So if you would be interested in committing to lead a chapter discussion, either by posting about it if you are an HTMLGiant contributor or guest-posting under my auspices if you aren’t, please email me at my first and last name at gmail. There are nine chapters, so in case not enough people want to do this, please let me know if you’d be willing to host two chapter discussions. However you’d like to go about leading the discussion is totally up to you.
If you aren’t willing to lead a discussion (that’s cool!), but you plan to follow along/guzzle vino/discuss, do say so in the Comments so that I have a sense of whether this is something people really want to do after all.
Lily Hoang—
my mom wanted to give me a kindle for christmas. luckily, she didn’t. do you have one? do you want one? would you use it & how?
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Book-Buying: A Success Story, by Justin Taylor, Megan Casella Roth, Michael Kimball, and Dylan Landis
(1) I came across this review of Dylan Landis’s Normal People Don’t Live Like This, by Megan Casella Roth and published in The Rumpus. It sounded interesting so I linked it on this site in a round-up post.
(2) I came across this interview with Landis by Michael Kimball. It was fascinating. I (or somebody here) linked that piece too.
(3) I decided to buy the book, but then I had to go to Florida before I could make it to the store.
(4) Thought: I could order this from Amazon and it will be at my house when I get back. Didn’t do it.
(5) Thought: [in FL] I should get my mom to drive me from Grandma’s to the B&N. Maybe they’ll have it there, or at least checking for it will kill an hour. But then I thought “I’d really rather buy this from an indie store that I like,”and they don’t have those in that part of Florida, so I went back to reading my galley of Witz by Joshua Cohen.
(6) Got back to NYC. Went to St. Mark’s Book Shop on East 9th street and 3rd Avenue. The store had exactly one copy, which happened to be the exact number of copies that I needed. After taxes, it cost $16.33, which in round numbers is about what it cost to see Avatar with the 3D-glasses sur-charge and my half of the bag of popcorn I split with my mom at the Boynton Beach Cinemark Whatever, with the main difference being that the Landis book is not covered in “butter-flavored” floor polish–and unlike the 3D glasses, I don’t have to give the book back when the show is over.
CONCLUSION: It feels like this is how the system is supposed to function. I got interested in something, decided to buy it, and was able to do so in relatively short order. Not immediately, mind you, but that slight delay seems like it was a valuable part of the process. It helped me establish that my interest in the book was genuine, plus it gave me the chance to yearn a little. I didn’t buy the book used. I didn’t bug the publisher for a review copy. I wanted to read the book, and so I bought the book–new, from a store I respect, whose balance sheet I feel good about appearing on.$16.33 isn’t exactly piss in the snow, but it’s not a fortune either. It’s almost $2 less than the price of two Maker’s Mark on the rockses at a bar I like on West 13th street (before tip). It’s almost half of what a weekly subway pass costs.
And I’m writing all of this in advance of having so much as opened the book itself. I guess if I hate it I’ll wish that I’d had those 2 drinks instead, but I purposely chose to post this anecdote before forming an opinion of the book, because I think even if I don’t end up liking it, the acquisition process still counts as a success story, complete in and of itself. (Of course I expect that I will like it, and in any case will report back once it’s read.) Here is a proposal: Every person who cares about literature should start to do exactly what I did, and we should all do it more often. Once a month, go to a local bookstore, and take a chance on a brand-new full-price book that you are interested in. If we all did this, 2010 would probably be the best year for publishing in a decade.
The Chupacabra Strikes Again (Or, A Letter from My Self on NYE)
(Sam, The World’s Ugliest Dog, chupacabra stand-in)
Dear Self,
It’s 10:30 on New Year’s Eve. You won’t make it until midnight. You’re tired and achy and your head’s swimming. You feel like throwing up.
The moon’s bright, and clouds sling tracks across the sky.
You’ve been thinking tonight, which is ever-dangerous, about why you sit down to write every day. Why do you do this thing that has very little return in the free market? That few people will ever read? That some will hate?
Self, you are too sincere, not nearly ironic enough. You are way too un-cool: hipster-with-a-fannypack-for-a-purse-uncool. Self, I know what you’re thinking—you’ve got books strewn around you on New Year’s Eve, you look drunk—but you’re thinking about urgency, the deep and monstrously incoherent need to believe in something against a backdrop of post-postmodern self-conscious irony, gluttony, and emotional vacancy.
Self, I’ve been reading over your shoulder. You think you do it because READ MORE >
2010 is the Year Of …
2007 was the Year of the Fact. 2007 was the Year of the Bus.
2008 was the Year of the Body. 2008 was the Year of the Future.
2009 was the Year of Lagom.
This is my alternative to resolutions. Sometime in January, usually within the first few days, I settle on a key word or two for the coming year. It is perhaps a bit like a resolution, as I hope that the words guide the year somewhat, but this guidance is pretty undefined, and the year may work in reaction to the word. The Year of the Bus was probably closest to a resolution–I planned to ride the bus more, and I did.
Lagom is a word I learned at a Unitarian church that I thought about joining (I took a lover instead). It is translated from the Swedish as “enough” or “in moderation,” but lagom isn’t just enough; it’s enough plus some. Enough is only enough to survive on; lagom is enough to live on and be well. Everything in moderation, including moderation.
Year of is also less personal, less private. It doesn’t belong to me, though other people may disagree about what it’s the year of, certainly. I am not going to specify how I came up with this Year Of; you can fill in your own blanks, if you decide that you agree. And without further ado:
2010 is the Year of the Program.
2010 is the Year of the Filter.