Visit this link (and scroll down) for an excerpt of the new Philip Roth novel, The Plot Against America. In other news, Pulitzer Prize winner Edward P. Jones is one of 23 people to be given a MacArthur Foundation Genius Award. That’s “annual checks for $100,000 for the next five years, to be used however they want,” for those of you keeping score at home. This year’s other literary geniuses are short story writer Aleksandar Hemon (The Question of Bruno, Nowhere Man) and poet C.D. Wright (Deepstep Come Shining, Steal Away). Here are profiles of Chicago’s two geniuses.
Roth Excerpt
TV book club goes farther afield
As TV book clubs fall by the wayside in terms of the public’s interest, the “Today Show” club appears willing to make some more off-beat, interesting selections. The most recent pick, chosen for the club by Walter Mosley, is Graceland by the Nigerian Chris Abani. The book, about a Nigerian Elvis impersonator trying to survive in the urban desolation of Lagos, has been out nearly a year – it was well-reviewed but not a big seller – yet it will get a second life thanks to this selection. Here’s an excerpt.
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America’s Expensive Novel Habit
In the New Yorker, Ian Frazier shares some stories about how the modern novel is threatening to bring down the American economy.Right now, it’s costing me forty-five dollars to fill up my 4Runner, which is about two novels. Tough decisions are going to have to be made. I’m used to having a newly released hardcover on the dash of my vehicle, another in the back seat for the kids. At home, we’ve got a novel in each bedroom, two in the family room, one in the laundry room for my wife when she’s down there, and a novella in the john. We go through a couple of dozen novels in a year without even noticing. I hate to say it, but this can’t go on.
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Even More New Books
This week’s New Yorker gives word of two more new new books that I am excited about. Robert Polidori is an architectural photographer by trade. If you look at his photographs, though, you will see that he is also something more. He is gifted in his ability to draw out the stunning colors that lay dormant within his subjects as an astronomer might reveal fantastical nebulae somehow hidden from the naked eye. His last book, Havana, is an exploration of the wilted beauty of a crumbling city (click here for some photos). His new book, Zones of Exclusion: Pripyat and Chernobyl, is a study in the deadlier decay of one of the twentieth century’s greatest disasters.I’ve often thought to myself that Knopf would do well to put out a comprehensive collection of John Updike’s short stories, and it appears as though this will come to pass this fall in the form of The Early Stories, 1953-1975. There are many who have claim to the mantle of best American Short Story writer, and Updike is incontrovertibly among them.
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DFW Rides Again?
For those of us wondering whether David Foster Wallace will ever publish another novel, the February issue of Harper’s seems to augur something good. The magazine’s “Readings” section features an excerpt from a “work in progress” Wallace first read at last year’s Le Conversazioni festival (heretofore notable mainly for its photo-ops of writers in short pants.) The excerpt itself concerns an Illinois-based IRS auditor, and, though it’s not a radical semantic departure from the stories in Oblivion, DFW is always good on bureaucracies, and on Illinois. A crackerjack ending had me eager to read more.Video from the Le Conversazioni reading is available.
A Rare Treat for Murakami Fans: Pinball, 1973
If you need to get your Murakami fix, but can’t stomach the idea of picking up After Dark, here’s your solution.Written in 1980, Pinball, 1973 was Murakmai’s second novel. It was published by Kodansha and has been out of print for several years, although it’s available at Amazon for a whopping $225.The book is part of the “Trilogy of the Rat” (actually four books), which begins with Murakami’s first book, Hear the Wind Sing and includes A Wild Sheep Chase and Dance Dance Dance (probably my favorite of his books). Apparently, Murakami refuses to allow either Hear the Wind Sing or Pinball, 1973 to be published outside of Japan, which is ironic, considering both of them are, in my opinion, far superior to either Sputnik Sweetheart or After Dark. This translation, linked below, along with Hear the Wind Sing, was done by Alfred Birnbaum for Japanese readers trying to learn English.The story is classic Murakami, before that became a bad thing. A rootless man who loves Dostoevsky spends his days looking for a hard to find part for a classic pinball machine. Mysterious twins move into his apartment. There’s a well and a cat. While it’s no masterpiece, it’s a good read for Murakami fans and those looking for a place to get started with his oeuvre.Here’s a link to a PDF of Birnbaum’s translation of Murakami’s Pinball, 1973.Bonus link: Some fan-translated short stories I stumbled on while researching this.Update 9/17: The link to the PDF has been fixed.Update 3/8/09: The link to the PDF has been fixed again!
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There Are Brit Gangsters Too… Apparently
Today, British crime photographer Jocelyn Bain Hogg stopped by the store. We had him sign copies of his intense photography book The Firm. The book is a photographic expoloration of British organized crime from the inside. These are the real life characters that Guy Ritchie borrowed for his laddish gangster films. Check out photos from the book here. Hogg followed these violent characters around for two years after he was introduced by a friend to members of the inner circle. Like many in organized crime, these guys had no problem with maintaining a very public profile, and in no time at all they delighted in having Hogg photograph them in outrageous circumstances. He described gangster holidays in Tenerife, and how he made sure to run his photographs by the “boss” before they saw the light of day. Though he claimed that he never felt as though his life was in danger, he carried himself with the nervous elation of the once condemned. The book’s rocky reception from the British press caused him to no longer consider himself a journalist; instead, he sees himself as nothing more than “a man with a camera.” He’s in Los Angeles doing preliminary research for his next book, preliminarily titled 15 Minutes, an exploration of fleeting fame in our celebrity-obsessed culture. He said that he was especially inspired by the throngs of psuedo-celebrities (reality-TV-spawned and otherwise) that enjoy brief tenures in gossip mags and on second rate talk shows. We told him that L.A. was the perfect place to start.
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