Beatrice Multi-tasking
Dumas Lost and Found
A literary mystery reached its conclusion about two years ago when a lost Alexandre Dumas novel was published in French. The Last Cavalier had been discovered by a scholar in the Bibliotheque nationale de France as researched Dumas’ life. The book has now made it here in translation. The New Yorker covers the book in its “Briefly Noted” section, calling it “a breathless seven hundred and fifty pages,” which is certainly an apt description of the one Dumas book I’ve ever read, The Count of Monte Cristo.The CS Monitor raves as well and offers some specifics on how the novel was found in serialized form and how it was turned into a novel, “in much the same fashion Dumas himself did when transforming other epic serials into bound novels.”
●
●
Michael Chabon’s update on The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
In September, I posted that Michael Chabon’s next book, The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, his first full-length adult novel since The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, was to be released on April 11, 2006. Alas, the book has been delayed. Chabon’s done with the manuscript, but there were scheduling problems with his publisher, HarperCollins. Chabon announced the delay on his Web site:HarperCollins had been sort of rushing the thing along, over a steady but polite murmur from the author that perhaps they were moving too quickly. The manuscript was complete. It was not impossible to make the April 11 pub date. But we didn’t even have a finished jacket. Many people who were selling and marketing the book hadn’t had the opportunity to read it. Everything just felt too rushed and when that sense of undue haste finally caught on at the publishing house, I was able to persuade them to see reason, and wait.The new date is now “Winter 2007.”
●
●
A New New Yorker Web Site
The New Yorker has unveiled a new version of its Web site, and while I applaud its clean look, the addition of much more content accessible from the front page, and RSS feeds, there is one major problem: links to much of the site’s content from the years the magazine has been online are, as of this writing, broken. This means the many, many links to New Yorker articles and stories in The Millions archives no longer work, rendering posts like my roundup of the magazine’s fiction in 2005 much less useful. On the other hand, perhaps they used the redesign as an opportunity to clear out the archives so that more folks would buy the Complete New Yorker.See also: Kottke takes a more in depth look at the redesign.
●
●
What Chabon’s Been Up To
Most folks probably know that Pulitzer-winning Kavalier & Clay author Michael Chabon had a hand in penning the script of this summer’s blockbuster movie, Spiderman 2. It turns out he’s been working on some books, too. As is mentioned in this article, keep your eyes open for a new novella in the Sherlock Holmes vein coming out this November. It’s called The Final Solution: A Story of Detection. He’ll also be editing another installment of the McSweeney’s “Thrilling Tales” series entitled McSweeney’s Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories. Finally, in the more distant future look for a new full-length novel. “The Yiddish Policemen’s Union is set in a parallel world in which the Jewish homeland was set up in Alaska rather than Israel, something that president Franklin D. Roosevelt considered during World War II.” Happy Labor Day!Update: The Yiddish Policemen’s Union
●
●
Tonight on 4th Avenue: Samantha Hunt and Alex Rose
Tonight’s installment of the Pacific Standard Fiction Series here in Brooklyn features Samantha Hunt, author of The Invention of Everything Else, and Alex Rose, author of The Musical Illusionist. Both books feature inventors working at the turn of the last century, and so “invention” is the night’s theme. Books will be for sale on-site, and drink specials will be chosen by dartboard. The reading starts at 7 p.m. Hope to see you there! (For more information, see Time Out.)
●
●