Usedbuyer addresses the fuss.
In Defense of Good Writing: Miss Ethel M. Dell’s Rare Interview on “All This Fuss About Proust.”
Why do you feel that commercial fiction, or more specifically popular fiction written by women, tends to be critically overlooked?
Ethel M. Dell: One has only to really look at the facts. One doesn’t feel one’s efforts to be overlooked in all venues. I do think the Times tends to overlook popular fiction, whether one is man, woman, white, black, or Hottentot. Many of one’s dearest readers tell one how very much they should like to see one reviewed more respectfully in the popular press, but what can one do? The prejudice against lady novelists is not however, I’m very glad to say, universal among the reviewers. The Monkton Combe Post for example, back when they had their book review section, used to say the kindest things about one’s little books…
New New Site
This is the third version of the site in as many years.
We did some basic formatting to the posts.
We added TypeKit fonts to the site, because we were tired of looking at web-safe fonts. TypeKit is shitty on the iPad, so everyone there and the people on shitty and weird browsers will get to look at Impact and Gill Sans. Everyone else gets Chunk and Ratio.
We made the site “tighter” with less empty space. It’ll look good on your phones and fit on whatever screen you’re using, hopefully.
We added a Disqus commenting system, because the comments are a little out-of-hand. It is more complicated than the previous system, but has the potential to make things less anonymous, which I like. You can seem more like an actual person to me.
The ads at the top are for independent publishers only. The ad slots are $30 each, and there are two in each of the five spaces. We wanted to keep this cheap, for the people we love.
There are a few other things, but I’m tired.
There are a few more changes in progress, so if you notice irregularities, that’s probably why.
I hope you enjoy the site. It should be nice for a little while.
Special shout-out to Jereme Dean, Blake Butler, Jimmy Chen, Ryan Call, and my wife for help with the redesign.
If you have any questions, please email me at gene@htmlgiant.com. I’m here for you.
*Update* Disabled TypeKit on Windows machines until I can make it look nice. For now, only Mac users have pretty fonts.
Paris Review Blog 404
This is why I like the internet somewhat: Joyce typos caused by quick updates even from the glossies.
Or maybe it’s no typo? Maybe “momentairly” is a more beautiful way to remind you that on the internet part of the fun is the making of whoompers, and sometimes whoompers are the charm.
Anyway, in however long it takes a momentairly to pass (perhaps it is over by the time you are reading this, realtime, shooing this icon to the PR web fodder bin), the Paris Review blog will return with a two week series of guest posts featuring Lydai Davis considering the act of translation, which we could surely use some help with anytime.
Random Live Broadcast of Recent Books I Like 2
The live reading is over but you can play back my live reading of recent and upcoming new books I am excited about here:
Featuring excerpts from:
The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich
Daddy’s by Lindsay Hunter
Thin Kimono by Michael Earl Craig
Money Poems by James Gendron
Coma by Pierre Guyotat
&
Sprawl by Danielle Dutton
David Foster Wallace Archives
The Wallace archives open today at the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. Included are more than 100 books he owned, often annotated, and other papers, such as this handwritten draft of the first page of Infinite Jest:
I still feel slightly conflicted over the whole nature of archives, and particularly certain natures of ones, but regardless, there probably haven’t been many days in the last eight to ten years that Wallace hasn’t somehow crossed my mind. Today should be no exception.
Blake Butler—
Have you ever kissed another writer’s ass or falsely bestowed praise in hopes of getting something in return or making friends? Did it work? Did it make you happy? Feel free to respond anonymously.
120
Language Is A Pie You Bake In The Sun We Share
Most of the blockquotes, via Wikipedia entries for Mythical origins of language & Origin of language, are slightly edited.
Criswell Predicts
Jonathan Franzen’s new novel Freedom will be the next Oprah Book Club selection. Between the two of them, nice will be made.
And remember: future events such as this will affect you in the future.