Some of you may know that I’m a pretty big fan of comics, or to put it more broadly, stories told in a visual format. I’m not heavily into the superhero stuff, but I love newspaper comics and graphic novels as well as cartoons and animation of all kinds. So, naturally, I was pretty excited when I discovered Scott McCloud a couple of years back. McCloud is the author of two fascinating books, the first, Understanding Comics, is a study of visual storytelling. It is presented in a very clever comic format, and even if you never intend to create your own comic one day, it brings up a lot of interesting stuff about how we convey perceive narratives. A second book called Reinventing Comics addresses the many doors that have been opened to the medium by the advent of computers and the internet. Today I happened upon McCloud’s website. I’m not sure why I never thought to look for it before, but I’m glad I found it. There’s a blog, a daily improvisational comic, and tons of other comics by him and others. Check it out. It’ll keep you busy for a while.
Comics on the Web
Quality over Quantity
Here in Iowa City, the only town in America whose economy is fueled entirely by football, alcohol and literature, we get more than our share of readings to attend. While I don't make it to all of them, I did manage to hear Marilynne Robinson read a few weeks ago. Ms. Robinson is an enchanting reader, and her new book Gilead was atop many "best of" lists for 2004. As anyone who has read a review of Gilead knows, it is Robinson's first novel since Housekeeping was published 24 years ago, and the way many in the media talk about it, it might as well have been 224 years ago. While Robinson has written two non-fiction books about such varied topics as John Calvin and Great Britain's nuclear policy, Gilead is indeed her first new work of fiction in many years. But so what? I for one would like to see more authors take their time between novels. One of my favorite writers, J.F. Powers, wrote only two novels and wrote them nearly 30 years apart. They're both nearly perfect, and I don't find myself wishing he wrote more. In fact, the scarcity makes it that much more likely that I'll actually read one of his books a second or third time, something I rarely do. I don't think I'll find myself diving into Kingsley Amis' very fine Old Devils as I've been poisoned by the vast sea of mediocrity that separates that book from his masterpiece Lucky Jim. So hats off to the Marilynne Robinsons, the J.F. Powers, and the Donna Tarts of the world. I sometimes wish we had a few more of them and a few less mediocre novels.
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Excerpt of John Irving’s Until I find You
The first chapter (or a fraction thereof) of John Irving's new novel Until I Find You has been posted at the Random House Web site. This novel looks like standard Irving - in the brief excerpt I noticed two classic Irving tropes, Toronto and a protagonist with a missing father. It's hard to say if the book will be good or bad. His last couple have been clunkers, but if Irving has managed to recreate some of the magic from his earlier novels in Until I Find You, I'll certainly read it. According to this article in the Times, he started the book back in 1998, which I'll take as a good sign. The reviews will probably start coming in soon. The book comes out July 12.Update: Until I Find You gets a "B-" at the Complete Review.
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Swine-Brained
As any student of the history of the English language - or of Walter Scott - knows, our having, as English speakers, different words for food on the hoof and food on the table is no idle fact. Consider the opening scene of Ivanhoe, in which the swineherd Gurth and Wamba the jester debate this very point:Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four legs?" demanded Wamba."Swine, fool, swine," said the herd, "every fool knows that.""And swine is good Saxon," said the Jester; "but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels, like a traitor?""Pork," answered the swine-herd."I am very glad every fool knows that too," said Wamba, "and pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?""It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool's pate."After the Norman Invasion in 1066, Norman French became the language of power in Britain, spoken by the king and court and any who wanted favor from them. The conquered residents of Britain, speakers of the Germanic Old English, were those who raised, tended, and hunted animals: Thus, cow (kuh), calf (kalb), swine (schweine), deer (deor), sheep (schaf), and hen (huhn) for living animals, while the wealthy Norman conquerors tended to be those who enjoyed the animals at table: Thus, beef (boeuf), pork (porc), mutton (mouton), and poultry (poulet).The English words have always seemed to me more sturdy - as well as more coarse. Like chewing a mouthful of rocks or biting into the branch of a sapling - too fibrous to chew, sour with sap. The French words seem like tiny exhalations of essence - bouef, mouton - the soul of the thing rather than sinews and bones.I think brains can take the character of their mother tongues. I am quite sure my brain is Anglo-Saxon - all sap and fibers and rocks and bones.
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Some Pynchon Coolness
"So I illustrated Gravity's Rainbow - nobody asked me to, but I did it anyway." -- Zak SmithCheck it out.
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Pronunciation challenges
I happened upon The American Heritage Book of English Usage Pronunciation Challenges page the other day. On the Pronunciation Challenges page, one can find a list of 191 commonly mispronounced words (or word types.) The page starts with a sentence that - though it doesn't make any sense - is made up of words that can be pronounced in "at least two distinctly different ways": The affluent and choleric comptroller heinously inveigled herbs from the impious valet who often harasses the dour governor with aplomb.
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From the Dark Corners of the Library
Where's Arthur's Gerbil?; A Pictorial Book of Tongue Coating; The Fangs of Suet Pudding: all real books apparently. Inspired by Bizarre Books: A Compendium of Classic Oddities, a new book collecting history's odd, obscure, and weird volumes, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Book Page is soliciting strange book titles from readers. The first entry might be the best: Cooking with Pooh, and why doesn't it surprise me that this one has become an Amazon collectors' item, with the cheapest copy on offer now going for the low, low price of $92.80.(Thanks Laurie)