On January 22, I read Shya Scanlon’s post “The Dull King”; on January 25 I read his second post “Cover Your Tracks.” Both were about reading James Wood’s How Fiction Works. Before that I’d heard of James Wood but hadn’t read anything by him; I knew some people liked him and some didn’t like him. [...]
Archive for January, 2010
Tiny Shocks: Uncovering the Reductive Plot of James Wood’s How Fiction Works
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Ann Quin, B.S. Johnson, Breathless (1960), Breathless (1983), Chekhov, Cthulhu, Curtis White, Flaubert, G.I. Joe, Hamlet, Henry James, How Fiction Works, James Wood, Jean Luc Godard, Jean-François Lyotard, John Gardner, John Ruskin, Last Tango in Paris, Les Carabiniers, Madame Bovary, Nabokov, ostranenie (enstrangement), Saul Bellow, The 400 Blows, The Concept of Character in Fiction, The Middle Mind, Theodore Adorno, Theory of Prose, Three Blondes and Death, Tripticks, Viktor Shklovsky, Watchmen, William H. Gass, Yuriy Tarnawsky on January 31, 2010 | 40 Comments »
A right tweet
Posted in Uncategorized on January 31, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The Guardian Review reports that Daisy Goodwin, the chair of the judges for this year’s Orange prize is writing about the books that have been submitted on twitter. (twitter.com/daisygoodwinuk apparently, I haven’t been there and I’ve no intention of going.) Admittedly, you can’t say much in the length of a tweet, but nevertheless I am [...]
Don DeLillo’s Novel Rejected!
Posted in Uncategorized on January 31, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Well, not really. But he thinks Americana would have been, had he tried to sell it today. He speaks with the WSJ about Point Omega: It’s tougher to be a young writer today than when I was a young writer. I don’t think my first novel would have been published today as I submitted it. [...]
Look at this fucking writer: Troy Urquhart
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Look at this fucking writer, Troy Urquhart on January 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
I’m pretty sure that sign is meant to be symbolic. * * * Want to be a part of “Look at this fucking writer”? Send a childhood photo and caption to molly.gaudry@gmail.com.
Trilogies
Posted in Uncategorized on January 30, 2010 | 24 Comments »
With science fiction increasingly dominated by multi-volume works I find myself more and more having to review volume X of Y. Sometimes, though this is far from as common as I would like, I actually get to review each volume in a sequence. I’m reviewing one such right now, and in the middle of writing [...]
Look at this fucking writer: Ricky Garni
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Look at this fucking writer, Ricky Garni on January 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Before I went over to the dark side. The dark side is right there in the picture – it’s wet with lots of waves and little fishes that are very strong. * * * Want to be a part of “Look at this fucking writer”? Send a childhood photo and caption to molly.gaudry@gmail.com.
Michael McConnell
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Denver Quarterly, Michael McConnell, visual arts on January 29, 2010 | 3 Comments »
I’m finally getting a chance to read the most recent issue of Denver Quarterly, and I feel a bit ashamed of myself for having used it as a coaster on my desk for some weeks now. There’s some great stuff inside. But what’s captivating me currently is on the outside–the cover art by Michael McConnell [...]
Poetry is the Music of being human
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Andrew Motion, Carol Ann Duffy, Poetry Live for Haiti on January 29, 2010 | 22 Comments »
No, I’m not sure what that means either. Carol Ann Duffy said it on the radio yesterday evening. Now, I have a great deal of respect for Ms Duffy, she and Andrew Motion before her have revitalised the meaningless position of Poet Laureate. She has also written poems around news events that still manage to [...]
Writer’s life: dicey life
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged American Short Fiction, ASF, gamble, Laura van den Berg, risk, Self-doubt, Stacy Muszynski, Writer's life on January 29, 2010 | 11 Comments »
I write all day long. Rarely do I write my own fictions all day long, however. Those I save for sundown, or for when I’m supposed to be rockin the Zs. Responsible civic living has done its number on my head. No doubt. I’m thinking about this a lot lately. I was thinking about this [...]
Fucking Funny
Posted in Uncategorized on January 29, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Author M. K. Hobson, who claims that her most successful short stories are humorous (which is a damned lie), writes a short blog post instructing the plebes on how to be comedic. Much of humor is in the choice of words. Words are hilarious. George Carlin did whole *acts* on nothing more than words and [...]
“Run, run, run, run. You better run all day. And run all night.”: On Kim Chinquee’s Oh Baby.
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Kim Chinquee, Oh Baby, Ravenna Press on January 28, 2010 | 15 Comments »
There’s a lot of running in Oh Baby, Kim Chinquee’s debut collection of flash fictions and prose poems. The opening story, “Batter,” is an evocative cluster of images and moments, suggesting a pivotal time in the character’s childhood, where, in the midst of domestic ruptures, she imagines herself at bat: “The coach said I was bunting. [...]
Expose This: Paul Beatty’s Slumberland
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Annalemma, Bob Dylan, Charles Bukowski, Christopher Heavener, Gore Vidal, Kevin Young, Kwame Dawes, Langston Hughes, Lou Reed, Paul Beatty, Slumberland, W.E.B. DuBois on January 28, 2010 | 6 Comments »
A lot can go down in a week. Last Thursday I read a blog post by Annalemma editor, Christopher Heavener about Paul Beatty’s Slumberland (read that post HERE). I was intrigued because of the mention of two of my favorite contemporary writers, Chabon and Lethem, but also because of Heavener’s passion for Beatty’s work. Working [...]
Salinger New Yorker Stories
Posted in Uncategorized on January 28, 2010 | 6 Comments »
An index with links here.
How are your books organized?
Posted in Uncategorized on January 28, 2010 | 49 Comments »
My own short answer is: they’re not. I don’t know why, but I am often suspicious of people whose shelves are completely alphabetized or arranged by genre or size or, gah, color. My books tend to be more of a Pigpen-style cloud than anything organized, than anything resembling a navigable library shelf – maybe it’s [...]
Side by Side #3
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Jack White, Side by Side, Son House, The White Stripes on January 28, 2010 | 6 Comments »
Somewhat frequently I go on a kick of being able to listen only to music made by Jack White. I’m in the throes of one of these beautiful obsessive periods. Perfect time for a Side by Side. “Death Letter” by Son House is one of my favorite songs, and The White Stripes cover is equal [...]
R.I.P. Howard Zinn
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged A People's History of the United States, Howard Zinn on January 27, 2010 | 4 Comments »
Howard Zinn August 24, 1922 – January 27, 2010 I read Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States about twenty years ago. At that time, I was impressed by its breadth, and I’d found its slant as uncompromising as it was inspiring; I still am, and do. Since that time, I’ve read a few of [...]
Eyeshot editor, Lee Klein, promises to be “100% respectful and helpful.”
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Eyeshot, Haiti, Lee Klein on January 27, 2010 | 4 Comments »
The following pasted text was copied directly from Eyeshot, which is where you should head immediately after reading this: HELP EYESHOT HELP OUT Eyeshot was originally founded and operated for ten years as a volunteer effort, a sort of textual first-aid for tender literary souls, no matter how bawdy or incomprehensible or odd. Recently, knowing [...]
Uncover Your Tracks: A Preliminary Critique of James Wood’s How Fiction Works
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Aristotle, Ben Jonson, Don Quixote, Flarf, free indirect style, Gravity's Rainbow, Gustave Flaubert, How Fiction Works, James Cameron, James Wood, John Gardner, leitmotif, Madame Bovary, Night Moves, On Moral Fiction, rhetoric, Shakespeare, Shya Scanlon, The Red and the Black, Thomas Pynchon, Tristram Shandy, Wagner on January 27, 2010 | 41 Comments »
Shya posted something two days ago about James Wood’s How Fiction Works, in which Wood advocates the use of “free indirect style”: The entire book is built around a concept he calls “free indirect style,” which essentially refers to a prose style for which Gustave Flaubert is largely responsible. One of the hallmarks of this [...]
Like a Virgin
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Irony, reading, Writing on January 27, 2010 | 12 Comments »
One of the great ironies of being a writer is that you necessarily lose the ability to experience writing in the way that first made you want to write. Sometimes when I’m in the midst of taking some passage apart in order to figure out how a particular author has achieved a certain effect, I’m [...]
Look at this fucking writer: Cat Rambo
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged Cat Rambo, Look at this fucking writer on January 27, 2010 | 1 Comment »
My mom is still kinda irritated that they gave me that cowgirl suit for Christmas and I refused to wear anything else for the next three days. Mother Mary and the three wizened puppet kings backed me up, though. * * * Want to be a part of “Look at this fucking writer”? Send a [...]
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