Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Lists
August 22, 2006 | 3 books mentioned 94 3 min read

Related Books:

Update 3: Thanks to some friendly advice, and seeing competing pronunciations flying around in the comments, especially for that pesky Goethe, I decided to go to the library and to do a little more Internet research to try to get some definitive pronunciations for these names, specifically printed references where available. So here is a new updated post on Hard to Pronounce Literary Names

Ask the Internet any question you want, and usually you’ll be able to learn the answer, but for some reason it’s not very good at helping people find out how to pronounce words and names. I’ve noticed, looking at my visitor logs, that people show up here again and again trying to find how to pronounce a handful of difficult literary names. Sadly they’ve found no answers here… until now. So on to the pronunciations.

  • J.M. Coetzee – the Nobel Laureate’s name is pronounced “cut-ZEE-uh” according to this Slate article and a number of other news items.
  • Paul Theroux – This well-known travel writer’s name “is pronounced ‘Thor-ew,'” says the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, “not like the dude from Walden Pond” (which would be Henry David Thoreau, whose name, according to the “Pronouncing Thoreau” sidebar to this NPR story is frequently mispronounced; it is supposed to sound like “thorough.”)
  • Spy novelist John Le Carre is pronounced “luh KAR-AY” or “luh kahr-AY,” according to this site, which lists pronunciations found in the Pronouncing Dictionary of Proper Names (who knew that such a book existed?). Incidentally, Le Carre is actually the pseudonym of David John Moore Cornwell.
  • Contemporary novelist and short story author Dan Chaon is pronounced “Shawn.” So says my friend Edan, who was a student of his at Oberlin.
  • Pulitzer, as in the prize and newspaper magnate Joseph Pulitzer – Number 19 in the Pulitzer FAQ: “The correct pronunciation is ‘PULL it sir.'”

If anybody else has other ideas for hard to pronounce literary names, leave them in the comments and we’ll add them to the list. Meanwhile, here’s a bonus link. The BBC has launched a pronunciation blog (via LanguageHat).

Update: Some great suggestions are rolling in from the comments. Kyle’s got some classic problem names:

  • Donald Barthelme = “Bartle-may” not “Bar-THELM” as I had originally heard. Michael Silverblatt solved that one for me.
  • Michael Chabon = “SHAY-bun” not “Sha-BON” like my friend has said.
  • Thomas Pynchon = “PIN-chawn” not “PIN-shin” or “PIN-chin” etc. etc.

…and for kicks here are two German oldies that need some respect…

  • Rainer Maria Rilke = “RILL-kuh” not “RILL-kee”
  • and Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe = “GOO-tuh” not “GARE-tuh” like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as “GO-thee” and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn’t as harsh as that. [Bud contends that you don’t “ignore the r sound altogether in Goethe.” In Chicago, there is a Goethe Street in the Old Town neighborhood, which the locals apparently pronounce Go-EE-the, though I could never figure out if they were just pulling my leg. –Max]

Laurie adds Ngugi Wa’Thiong’O, the Kenyan author whose latest book Wizard of the Crow just came out and Eoin Colfer, neither of whose names I know how to pronounce. Any help? She also suggests Seamus Heaney, Nobel laureate, which The Traveller tells us is pronounced SHAY-mus HEE-knee.

Update 2: Some debate about Seamus Heaney in the comments, but this NY Times article seems to confirm it: “SHAY-muss HEE-nee”. Kyle, meanwhile, informs us that Eoin Colfer is pronounced “Owen”. My favorite unpronounceable book title, by the way, is James McCourt’s Mawrdew Czgowchwz, pronounced “Mar-dew Gorgeous”.

created The Millions and is its publisher. He and his family live in New Jersey.

● ●
● ●
● ●
Lists Notable Articles

Six Egyptian Writers You Don’t Know But You Should

Lists Notable Articles
June 24, 2011 | 3 books mentioned 17 5 min read
More writers from Egypt made the longlist for the $50,000, 2011 International Arabic Prize for Fiction (IPAF) than writers from any other country. And now it was Egypt's Arab Spring. Where was the work of these men and women, work that was a catalyst for the ongoing social transformation of the largest nation in the Middle East?
Lists Notable Articles
| 3 books mentioned 17 5 min read
● ●

94 comments:

  1. Barthelme = "Bartle-may" not "Bar-THELM" as I had originally heard. Michael Silverblatt solved that one for me.
    Chabon = "SHAY-bun" not "Sha-BON" like my friend has said.
    Ummm…oh..
    Pynchon = "PIN-chawn" not "PIN-shin" or "PIN-chin" etc. etc.
    …and for kicks here are two German oldies that need some respect…
    Rilke = "RILL-kuh" not "RILL-kee"
    and
    Goethe = "GOO-tuh" not "GARE-tuh" like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as "GO-thee" and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn't as harsh as that. So I am told. Anyway. Those are a few. If I think of more I will post them.

    Kyle Winkler.

  2. Ngugi Wa'Thiong'O, Kenyan author whose latest book "Wizard of the Crow" just came out this month.

    Seamus Heaney, nobel laureate.

    Eoin Colfer, children's author.

  3. The "G" in W.G. Sebald stands for Georg (no e). I think that's pronounced something like Gayorg (hard Es). What thinks ye, Mr. Max?

    Also, don't think you ignore the r sound altogether in Goethe

  4. I agree on Ngugi Wa'Thiong'o – I am afraid to even say his name out loud.

    Seamus Heaney is pronounced SHAY-mus HEE-knee.

  5. Eoin = "Owen"
    And I have always heard Heaney pronounced
    "HAY-nee" even by many Irish people, when I visited.
    I can't help with the African name, although I will try to find someone who can.
    And that's interesting about that Chicago street name…

    Kyle

  6. This was a fun excuse to Google curious sources such as the BBC Pronunciation Unit blog. More Chicago lore: Buildings in the Carl Sandburg Village condo complex are named for James, Faulkner, Alcott, Cummings and other authors. Tell the cabbie, "Clark and GO-thee."

  7. Bud: I think I'll just stick with "WG" so as not to worry about such things.

    Steve: I always wondered about that Carl Sandburg Village but never knew that the buildings are named after literary greats… Perhaps I can do a little research and put together a post on the place.

  8. I guess I should pitch in a bit as well.

    Isn't Rainer Maria Rilke's first name pronounced oddly as well: RYE-ner, not RAY-ner?

  13. "
    Goethe = "GOO-tuh" not "GARE-tuh" like we smarmy Americans like to think it is. I have heard it as "GO-thee" and all kinds of botched up ways, but yesterday I asked a German woman who is a Lit. major and she straightened it out. Apparently, here in the states we overemphasize the umlaut to an R when it isn't as harsh as that. So I am told. Anyway. Those are a few. If I think of more I will post them."

    This isn't really correct. You don't pronounce it GOO, like sticky stuff, tuh.
    It is a more gutteral sound, but if you need to simplify the pronunciation "GUH-tuh" would be closer than "GOO-tuh"

  14. Vladimir Nabokov: Vla-DEEM-eer Nuh-BOCK-off. Not NAB-uh-kov, like in The Police's "Don't Stand So Close To Me."

  15. Also, P.G. Wodehouse is WOOD-house. It doesn't rhyme with Patrick Swayze's greatest accomplishment, Roadhouse.

  17. how do you say Cervantes? and whats the correct way to say Don Quixote?

    is it Don 'KEE-OH-TEE' or 'QUICKS-OTT'

    theres a word in English, Quixotic, which is pronounced 'QUICKS-OTIC'

  19. I saw Ngugi wa Thiong'o last week at the Edinburgh Book Festival – I'm not much good at phonetic spelling but his name seems to be pronounced un-goo-gee wah thee-ong-go (hard 'g'in Ngugi, and actually a cross between 'in' and 'un' for the first syllable).
    He was a great speaker – terribly articulate in English but a terribly thick accent; I'm quite sure, unfortunately, that I missed some parts of his talk.

  20. don quixote is pronounced: don kee-HO-tay

    maud, i've heard ngugi's pronounced similarly: en-goo-gee wa-thyon-go

  24. OO ELL BEK, but it'll sound like "WEL BEK" to most English speakers because the "OO ELL" is pronounced so quickly.

    (The H is silent, and "ou" in French is like English "oo".)

  25. Michael Critchon–I was told is pronounced CRY ton.

    Great info! Thanks!

    Lynne AKA The Wicked Witch of Publishing

  26. I'm a librarian… the most mispronounced author name I hear is Annie Proulx.

    Proulx, according to my French friends is a very very very old spelling. The "l" and the "x" are both silent. You pronounce it PROO (rhymes with "new".

    Don Quixote in SPANISH is pronounced Don Kee-HOH'-teh. The "Don" rhymes with "Tone." I think the other pronunciations derived from French people mis-pronouncing the name. Americans needn't be too ashamed of how we mispronounce foreign words. Have you heard the BBC reporters say "Nicaragua"? Ha! It's a hoot. They say "Nick-uh-RAG-yoo-ah." It is properly pronounced more like "Nee-ka-ra'-wa."

  28. Don Quixote: above poster (hephaestion) is correct. And yes, quixotic is derived from his name, pronounced quiks-OD-ik, as Spanish already has its own "quijotesco" (kee-ho-TES-ko).

    Cervantes: ser-VAN-tes. ser has soft "r", almost like "sed", van not like the vehicle, like "yawn", and tes as in "test", omitting the last "t".

  30. The guy got Nabokov's first name right, but in interviews he has said the "bok" rhymes with "smoke" and the "ov" rhymes with "of." He also said once the "bok" rhymes with "gawk," which I think is only correct if you're thinking of a British pronunciation of the word (which I think would then rhyme with "smoke" only with more of a curl in it, making the pronunciation more Russian-sounding, if that makes sense).
    I would transcribe it something like–Nuh-bowk-of.

  31. concerning matthew kneale, author of ENGLISH PASSENGERS. Is the correct pronunciation neil oder neilè, which I seem to remember to have picked up somewhere. Thanks

  33. DON QUIXOTE…. In the period in which the story was written the 'X' would have been pronounced like 'SH'. So, actually, you would say "kee-sho-tee". Modern Spanish is where "kee-ho-tee" comes from and "kwiks-ott" is pretty laughable (although it has been used for ages).

  37. Actually, the suggestions are almost right, except that the "ng" in Thiong'o should be a soft "ng" like in "sing". "Ngugi" should be pronounced with just an "n" sound, not an "un", before the "goo gee". If you can't manage that, then start with the "ng" in "sing" and go from there to the hard g sound. Also, my understanding is that in Gikuyu his name would have short vowels where there are ~ marks, such that u would rhyme with "good", etc., but the long-vowel pronounciation is so common in the States I'm sure he's used to it.

  40. I have lived in Old Town in Chicago for 13 years and everyone I know pronounces Goethe as Guer-tuh, which may be the smarmy American way, however I have never heard it botched to the point of Go-EE-the.

  41. I am new, I stumbled upon this site by chance when I was researching the proper pronunciation of various literary names. I am not sure if it has already been noted or not, but I also found a site called http://www.howjsay.com. It is a website that has a collection of over 2,000 English words (including authors, and commonly used phrases). All you do is type in the author name(i.e.; Albert Camus) and the pronunciation is given. (I read that the pronunciation is researched from a collection of various dictionaries, and other sources). I hope this helps.. or at least you find the site interesting. :) thanks.

  42. John Proulx, Jazz Singer & Pianist is always mispronounced. It is pronounced "Proo" Like "Shoe". Some people have called him John Prowl like the "Owl" This is incorrect. Thank you

  44. Bless you!! I love this site. Annie Proulx is one of my favorite authors, but I'm always afraid to say her name out loud. (I have been saying it correctly- thanks to my junior high school French.)

  46. I have been trying to find out how to pronounce robert L Cvornyek’s name and also Elliot Cuff and also Prince Vuyani Ntintili. If any one can help me out thak you. I dont have an e mail of my own but i would appreciate it if some one would call me back at 1-240-603-9284 with the pronounciation of these words please and th ank you.

  48. According to my African Literature professor, whose “The River Between” we just read and knows him personally and speaks Kikuyu/Gikuyu, Ngugi wa Thiang’o is pronounced, “NYOO-gee (hard g) wah TEE-ongo”.

  49. It’s not “GOO-tuh”, and I’m not saying your German lit professor was wrong, I’m saying you misheard some subtleties or you did not correctly phonetically spell it out. Pronouncing the German “oe” or umlaut is very hard for some Americans. There is still an ‘R’ there it just gets kind of swallowed by the preceding noise, we just don’t recognize it, and trying to explain how it’s not GOO is kind of difficult, check out Wikipedia’s entry for Goethe and click the “listen” function to the right of his name.

  51. Answering my own question:
    According to a 1997 interview with Robert Crais in the Baltimore Sun, his name is pronounced like “face.”

  52. How do I pronounce Louis de Bernières? I get Louis = Loo-ey, but the surname?

    I need it for a wedding I’m doing on Saturday – the couple has chosen a reading from Captain Corelli’s Mandolin

    Thanks
    Anita

  53. Pingback: How to Pronounce Unpronounceable Author Names – The Blogs at HowStuffWorks

  55. I’d love to kow the correct pronunciation of Don DeLillo’s last name. Is it actually “duh-LIL-lo” as I’ve heard?

  57. Goethe: ‘GOO-tuh’ is completely wrong. Anonymous 25 August 2006 is right. The Germans pronounce him ‘GER-tuh’.

  59. If you live on the Westbank in New Orleans and happen to live on Socrates Street, the pronunciation there is So-Crats. See the wonderful book, “Frenchmen, Desire, Good Children”- these are all street names.

  60. Thanks for this valuable list. To tweak one of the additions: Chabon is actually “SHAY-bon” not “SHAY-bun” (he’s helpfully described it as Shay as in Shea Stadium, Bon as in Bon Jovi).

  61. Pingback: Literary Names and How to Pronunce Them - World Literature Forum

  63. Yeah, I can confirm that in Chicago I’ve never once heard Goethe pronounced anything than “Gerta.”

    To the people arguing that “No, it’s GER-tuh” “No, it’s GOO-tuh” – I’m pretty sure it’s neither. The umlaut is a sound that most americans don’t know how to pronounce, so it more like something in between the two. So American though of us to only be able to think of it in American terms.

  64. Pingback: How Do You Pronounce That Writer’s Name? « BIG OTHER
  65. Pingback: How Do You Pronounce That Writer’s Name? « BIG OTHER

  66. It is frustrating when authors like Paul Theroux mispronounce their own last name… Thor-EW?

    Maybe he should visit French Canada (Quebec) and see how the 99% of the Theroux’s there (some of whom are probably related to him) PROPERLY pronounce it.

    I swear that some authors just like to be difficult.

  67. The pronunciation for the last name Barthelme is exactly how it is spelled .
    Barth-el -me. Nothing fancy as you can see it is my last name and people try to make it sound more glorious than it is .

  68. Merriam Webster lists the pronunciation of Mr. Pynchon’s name as “\ˈpin-chən\.” I’m inclined to trust Merriam rather than themillions.com, barring any further evidence.

  69. I once had an embarrassing experience pronouncing ‘Goethe’ as ‘Go-ETH’ in front of my English class – in my defence I’d never said it out loud before..and it sounded fine in my head! So to avoid this in the future – does anyone know the definitive pronunciation of ‘Chinua Achebe’?

  70. Quick note about Don Quixote. The use of ‘kwicks ote’, though harsh to our ears, was the pronunciation used when the story appeared in England. It’s incorrect in light of Spanish, but for anyone reading the English translation who wants to speak of the text in its initial, serial form, ‘kwicks ote’ is the way to go. A holdover from this is in the word quixotic.

  71. What about Jodi Picoult? I’ve heard “pi-COLT,” and “pee-COO,”
    but I think it’s “pi-COE.”

  72. So now I need to know. How is Mahala pronounced? I found this in my genealogy and thought it was either ‘muh hall uh’ or ‘muh hay la’ but wasn’t quite sure. And is Mahalia Jackson’s name pronounced the same or different?

  74. How do you pronounce John Lescroart’s last name. We work in a public library and we want to pronounce author’s names correctly.

    We really enjoy this site.

  75. I’ve heard that “Mainwaring” (as in the Barbara Pym character) is pronounced “Mannering.”

  78. I’m bilingual, English/German. Goethe is tricky for Americans especially. “Gerta” or “Girtuh” are close, but don’t pronounce the “r” sound! Like in British “posh” English, the word “girl” sounds more like “gull” , but lengthened and very slightly nasalised.

  79. Great discussion! Please forgive a non-author related question, but I’ve seen many Dutch names that begin with ” ‘t “. Anyone have any idea how to pronounce this?

  80. I see the name Alcott at the top of the list. In Concord, Massachusetts, where she lived, Louisa May Alcott’s surname is pronounced AWL-cut, not AL-cot, like the tennis player’s.

  81. The g’s in Borges’ name are phlegm-ish. Just FYI. Not pure “H” sounds. Closer to a Dutch g but not quite so “cough up a hairball” as that. All due respect to Dutch speakers (I’m a huge BLØF fan).

    Fun stuff. I struggle with the names of some of my favorite authors all the time.

  83. English uses the diaeresis mark (the double dot) in words such as naïve to tell you that the vowels do not form a dipthong but are to be pronounced separately. I think it’s the same with Anaïs. My guess is a-NAY-is.
    Mostly the mark is dropped now; e.g. it used to be commonly used for daïs, and Zoë, and so on.

  84. The Chicago street is & always has been pronounced “Go-thee”!
    A few people did say “Go-Ee-Thee”, but they were a rarity.
    What’s totally absurd is the automated voice on buses here says “Gare-ta” with the next stop being Burton, both sound similar.
    The only reason the bus is “Gare-ta”, is that the previous head of the Chicago Transit Authority was of German descent & demanded that pronunciation.
    But no one here says that, just as we pronounce “Buena St.” as “Bew-enn-a”!

  86. C. Max McGee and Michelle Barthelme:

    I would never presume to tell anyone how to pronounce his or her name. However, I will say that Michael Silverblatt doesn’t pronounce it Bartle-may OR Barth-el-may. He pronounces it Barth-el-mee. Check out his interview with Dave Eggers here, minute 7:07. And as he says, Donald Barthelme was his friend and mentor, so he’d probably know:
    http://www.kcrw.com/etc/programs/bw/bw050210dave_eggers

  87. Thor-ew for “Thereux”? I know it’s still an Americanized pronunciation, but where are they getting the “o”? Plus, in French names, syllables do not end in consonants. I don’t know if there’s meant to be an accent there, but if there is, in French it would be tay-roo; if not; teh-roo. The Americanized version would be the-roo, (soft th) not tho-roo.

  88. How do you pronounce David Baldacci?
    I’ve heard both Baldachee as well as Baldakee and I don’t which is right.

  89. Where are you getting an “o” sound in Thereux? In French it would be Théreux, which sounds like tay-RUH (where the “uh” sound is like the u in “put.” The Americanized version would be more like thuh- (th sound as in “thistle) ruh (same “u” as in”put” or thuh-ROO. Not tho-roo.

  90. The childrens’ author Rick Riordan. The surname is pronounced Ryer-dan and not Rhee-or-dan as I once thought.

    Great post!

  92. Henry David Theroux. Kinfolk and followers near Walden Pond say THOR-oh. Most Americans say Tha-ROH.

  93. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o’s name is pronounced NGOO-gee (the NG is the same as it is in anger, and the second part is the same as ghee) WAH Thee-ong-oh (the TH as it is in ‘this’, and the ng is a soft one, as in bang).

    There is no “IN” as suggested by Judson. I should know, I’m Kenyan

Add Your Comment:

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

● ●
Lists

The Most Anticipated Books of 2005

Lists
January 5, 2005 | 3 books mentioned 7 min read
Now that all the 2004 best of lists are behind us, I thought folks might be interested in what we have to look forward to. I have no doubt that in 2005 we will be introduced to many new literary faces, but there are also a number of well-known authors whose books will hit shelves this year: Murakami, McEwan, Foer, and more. So, I've compiled a list of books that you may find yourself reading this year. The list goes through July; some of the release dates are rough estimates, and a few of the dates will probably change. Also, I'm sure there are books I've missed, so please leave a comment with any other books you might be looking forward to this year.There's a passel of intriguing books coming out in January. Hitting stores any day now is William Boyd's latest collection of stories, Fascination. This one has been out in the UK for a couple of months, and the Gaurdian described Boyd's stories this way: "They would seem a little too perfect if they weren't also suffused with an understanding of love, desire and emotional incompetence." You can read an excerpt here. Next week sees the arrival of Eleanor Rigby by Douglas Coupland. The New York Times isn't impressed, calling it "a high-art twist on chick lit," but the Boston Globe says the book "remains as thoughtful and melancholy as the Beatles song its title evokes." You can read an excerpt here (pdf). Then, on or around January 18th, comes a book that many readers have been looking forward to: Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami. This one's been out for a while in the UK, too. Kafka is not a departure from Murakami's surreal oeuvre. The book follows the parallel paths of 15-year-old runaway named Kafka and Nakata, an elderly bumpkin who can communicate with cats. According to initial reviews, the book doesn't seem likely to be considered his finest work, but it should please Murakami fans. I encourage you to take a look at the Kafka page at the Complete Review for all the review coverage, and if you would like to read the first five chapters of the book, go here, click on the contest link, fill out your info, and use the password "kafka."February: In 1990 Charles Johnson won a National Book Award for his book Middle Passage. Since then he has written a novel and a collection of short stories, and on February 8, a new collection, Dr. King's Refrigerator, will be released. A Publishers Weekly review says that some of the stories are too didactic, but "Johnson's longer, more carefully fleshed out stories are most effective."March: Francine Prose's A Changed Man, which will be out March 1, looks very intriguing. An early review by Publishers Weekly describes this story of a young neo-Nazi who walks into a human rights organization office wanting to change his ways as "a good-natured satire of liberal pieties, the radical right and the fund-raising world." It will be interesting to see if this book proves to be, as HarperCollins declares, "Prose's most accomplished yet." Given the astonishing success of Ian McEwan's Atonement in 2002, his follow-up effort, a novel called Saturday, may be the most anticipated work of fiction in 2005. A recent piece in the New Yorker which was taken from the new novel shows promise. The central character of the novel, Harry Perowne, is a confident but unconventional neurosurgeon whose altercation with a thug following a car accident is the catalyst that sets the plot inexorably in motion. You can read the excerpt here. Look for the book on March 22. After writing a book as massive as Rising Up and Rising Down (that's 3352 pages, by the way), you'd think William T. Vollmann would take a break. Apparently not. On March 24, Viking will release Vollmann's latest collection of short stories, Europe Central, which take place in Russia and Germany during World War II. The breadth of Vollmann's work is truly astounding.April: Buoyed by the success of his Boston Red Sox book (co-written by fellow fan Stephen King), Stewart O'Nan is probably hoping that some of those baseball fans will become fans of his fiction. His new novel, The Good Wife, comes out on April 1. O'Nan also considered calling this novel Upstate, a reference to the incarcerated husband of the book's protagonist. Everything I read about Jonathan Safran Foer's new book, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, makes me more and more curious. Among young, bright writers who have emerged in the last couple of years, Foer is probably the youngest and may be the brightest as well. His first novel, Everything Is Illuminated included narration in broken English, and his short story "A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease" did things with typography that I haven't seen done in fiction before. The new book - set to arrive on April 4 - will continue with this sort of experimentation, including the use of photography to illustrate the novel. There's an interesting interview available at this website where Foer goes into detail about the new book (You have to click on the Foer link and then on Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to get to it, but it's worth the trouble). After a five year hiatus, Kazuo Ishiguro has a new book coming out on April 5. The new book, called Never Let Me Go, is about an English boarding school with a troubled, but until now forgotten, past. You can read an excerpt here.May: All the dedicated (some might say rabid) Chuck Palahniuk fans out there will be pleased to hear that he has a new book coming out this year (his official fan site is known as "The Cult," by the way). Haunted is a novel in 23 stories. Each story centers on a visitor to a writers' retreat where things, inexorably, go awry. I say it sounds like an update on the classic summer camp horror flick, but Doubleday describes it as "The Real World meets Alive." Look for it May 17.June: Paul Theroux's latest work of fiction is about "the ultimate one-book wonder." For such a prolific writer, with a new novel or travelogue out nearly every year it seems, I wonder if creating this character was a struggle for Theroux, if he was able to get into the mind of a man with writer's block, something I suspect Theroux is not often afflicted with. The book is called Blinding Light. It will be released on June 1. Apparently Jonathan Safran Foer isn't the only literary stylist coming out with an illustrated novel in 2005. Umbarto Eco's new novel The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana will be of the illustrated variety as well. According to the Harcourt publicity, the memories "racing before the eyes [of the book's amnesiac protagonist] take the form of a graphic novel." No word on who supplied the artwork -- or if it was Eco himself, but the book has been out in Europe since last year so I suppose someone knows the answer. Here are some thoughts on the book from a blogger who read the German translation. The book comes out on June 3. George Singleton's forthcoming novel -- titled Novel -- is the only debut novel on this list, but Singleton is already well-known by readers who enjoy his comic stories and Southern charm. You can read one of his short stories here. The new book, which is set to come out on June 6, is about a snake handler from the town of Gruel, South Carolina.July: John Irving isn't quite the superstar novelist he once was. Irving's novels -- The World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany, The Hotel New Hampshire -- were my introduction to contemporary literary fiction, and he was my first real "favorite author." But the middling quality of his recent novels, each one more mediocre than the last, ill-timed remarks about who should or should not pay taxes, and his dalliances with Hollywood have lost him some of his fans. Still, he keeps writing novels, and maybe this next one, Until I Find You (about a son's search through the tattoo underworld for his ink-addicted father), will be a return to form. The book comes out on July 12.And if these aren't enough for you check out preview articles from The Herald, The Age (reg. req.), the Boston Globe, and the Guardian. Happy reading in 2k5.
Lists
| 3 books mentioned 7 min read
● ●
Lists

Getting to Know the Presidents, Part 2: From the Compromisers to the Beards

Lists
October 29, 2014 | 3 books mentioned 1 7 min read
A few weeks ago I was at WBEZ here in Chicago to record an interview with an NPR reporter who was in Vermont. The sound engineer asked me to start talking so she could test my microphone levels. “Four score and seven years ago,” I began, “our fathers brought forth upon this continent a new nation.” Right about when I got to “It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here,” she stopped me and said “Ok, we’re good to go. But….was that the Gettysburg Address?” Yes, I have the Gettysburg Address memorized. I have for about two years, since I recited it at my 30th birthday party, in the normal fashion. I also have a framed picture of Lincoln above my desk, a set of 10 presidential Pez dispensers (mint condition! new in box!), both a William Henry and Benjamin Harrison figurine, many presidential mugs, magnets, and t-shirts, and a bottle of “General’s Reserve” wine from Galena, Illinois. These are the things that collect in one’s life when one is a presidential history buff. (Actually, everything listed above was a gift. Having a singular hobby also makes one really easy to shop for.) Five years ago I set out to read a biography of every American president in chronological order (a project I chronicle at my blog At Times Dull). When I wrote about the project here at The Millions three and a half years ago, I was one-third of the way through, and having just seen William H. Taft off to the big bathtub in the sky, I’m now roughly two-thirds through. For my own reference (and amusement, as the jollies are few and far between for a presidential biography blogger) I’ve grouped the presidents into eras as I go: The Founding Fathers, The Nation Builders, The Expansionists, The Compromisers, The Civil War Presidents, and The Beards. At last writing I had just reached Abraham Lincoln after a long string of Compromisers -- the unhappy and mostly forgotten presidents who had to wade through the political morass of antebellum America. I have once again arrived at presidential legend, this time Teddy Roosevelt, after a long string of forgotten ones, this time the Beards. The Beards are Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley, and I have a specific fondness for them, as I have a specific fondness for the presidents of each era. Situated between Grant and Roosevelt, they oversaw the 40 years that pulled the nation from Reconstruction into the Gilded Age. It wasn’t pretty. While the government had been focused on the Civil War and Reconstruction, the civil service had become horribly corrupt, interstate commerce increasingly dominated a country that was designed for intrastate commerce, and the rise of corporations meant the corollary rise of organized labor, but domestic legislation hadn’t caught up with any of it. This era needed a new kind of leadership. It felt strange to me to go from the Civil “we-always-knew-this-was-coming” War to an era the Founding Fathers literally could not have imagined. One of my favorite presidential anecdotes took place during South Carolina’s Nullification Crisis of 1832, when a question of whether something was Constitutional led someone to just go ask 81-year-old James Madison. He was like “no” and that kind of settled it. Not only did The Beards not have the author of the Constitution around as their phone-a-friend, the Constitution itself had less and less to say about the practical reality of their time. The Beards are the unsung heroes who oversaw that transition and started laying the framework of modern America. And when I say it wasn’t pretty, I don’t mean visually, because ladies and gentleman, Rutherford B. Hayes was shockingly good-looking. Look at that guy! Why don’t they teach this in school? That he grew a beard before his presidency is a national tragedy. Rud Hayes is one of my favorite presidents, and not just because I can get lost for days in his eyes. He took office after Grant, and while I love Ulysses S. Grant, he wasn’t a good president. Grant too frequently followed the advice of New York political boss Roscoe Conkling, who was a true villain. He came from a long line of New York political bosses -- Martin Van Buren, Thurlow Weed, William Seward -- who had enormous influence in the federal government. It was customary for the president to have a wary but necessary relationship with these slimeballs (the lifelong rivalry between Thurlow Weed and Millard Fillmore is pretty juicy, if you have the time). It all came down to civil service jobs. At the time, the president personally appointed every upper-level federal job in the nation. This might have been wise in 1790, but it made no sense, in 1876, for a president who was born and raised in Ohio to appoint the postmaster of Tulsa. But it was great if you lived in Tulsa, because then you could do a little campaigning for Rud Hayes -- hand out some pamphlets or give a speech, maybe -- and then when he became president write him a letter and say “I have a brother-in-law who would make a great postmaster.” This practice was called patronage, and as stupid as it was it was the only way to get elected, so everybody did it. The best civil service jobs were in New York, namely at the New York Customs House. From what I understand, if you worked at the Customs House you could just show up now and then, collect a bag of money, and leave without doing any work. If you were running for president and you wanted New York’s electoral votes, which you did, you had to ask for Roscoe Conkling’s help. He would get you elected and then he got to dictate who got all the New York jobs. Rud Hayes wanted civil service reform, but nobody believed it was possible to dismantle a system with such a tight hold on electoral politics. It’s analogous to campaign finance reform today -- nobody’s against it, nobody’s going to do it. But Handsome Rud up there was determined, and to prove it he up and fired the man in the most coveted, most notoriously corrupt civil service job -- New York customs collector Chester A. Arthur. Rud didn’t run for a second term. He knew that his reforms had burned too many political bridges for him to stand a chance at re-election, so he fell on his reform sword and bowed out. (He actually hadn’t won the election that made him president in the first place, but that’s another story.) When it came time for the Republicans to choose a candidate to succeed him, they had a problem. Rud’s firing of Arthur had split the party in two. On one side were the Stalwarts, led by Conkling, who wanted to centralize power and continue being corrupt buttheads, and on the other side were the Radicals, who thought the party should stop coasting on Lincoln’s reputation and start enacting social change. Neither faction was large enough to push their own candidate through, and as much as the Radicals disliked Conkling’s political machine, they needed his influence. Roscoe Conkling was still hopping mad about Rud firing Arthur, and they couldn’t afford to alienate him any further. As a compromise, they suggested unknown Ohio senator James Garfield as the presidential candidate (“Who’s that? Well, whatever,” everyone said), and let Conkling hand-pick the vice presidential candidate. Conkling, in a fit of dramatic revenge, chose Chester Arthur. Thus giving us President James Garfield, and upon his death President Chester Arthur. When Garfield lay dying, one newspaper editor ruminated on the fact that an infamously corrupt administrator who had never held elected office and was given his current office as a show of spite was one infected gunshot wound away from the highest office in the land, and concluded: “Chet Arthur as president! Good God!” Indeed. And yet Arthur’s one term presidency wasn’t full of the monkey business everyone expected. Potentially abashed by the dire predictions for his administration, he did his best to simply carry out the party platform without injecting his own ideas. He distanced himself from Conkling, and even supported civil service reform measures, to every ironist’s great delight. At President Grant’s funeral, he found himself sharing a carriage with President Hayes, the man who, by publicly firing him, had given him a political career he never wanted. By all accounts they were perfect gentlemen. This period was full of presidents who seemed to rise to that position by accident. Hayes hadn’t won his election. Garfield was a compromise candidate. Arthur wasn’t even a politician (and he was probably born in Canada). Cleveland, Harrison, and McKinley were all elevated on the merits of their work ethic. The parties favored diligence over vision, a trend that continued until McKinley’s death gave us President Roosevelt and a new mold of president as political celebrity. But if At Times Dull has taught me anything, it’s that America gets a few great presidents and can survive a lot of mediocre ones, and after 225 years we still can’t predict which will be which. Most presidents do more reacting than acting, and to be a great president you have to react to something momentous. The Beards brought a lot of their own drama to the White House (Garfield had chronic diarrhea, Arthur and Cleveland both had secret medical problems), but the national issues they faced are ones we’ve stopped talking about. At least in the case of Arthur -- who just wanted to complete the task entrusted to him without confirming everyone’s doubts -- I actually don’t think he’d mind. The Presidential Biographies I've Read (Since Last Time) Lincoln by David Herbert Donald Impeached: The Trial of President Andrew Johnson and the Fight for Lincoln's Legacy by David O. Stewart Grant by Jean Edward Smith Rutherford B. Hayes: Warrior and President by Ari Hoogenboom The Garfield Orbit by Margaret Leech Gentleman Boss: The Life of Chester Alan Arthur by Thomas Reeves An Honest President: The Life and Presidencies of Grover Cleveland by H. Paul Jeffers Benjamin Harrison: Hoosier Statesman by Harry J. Sievers In the Days of McKinley by Margaret Leech The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt & Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris William Howard Taft by Henry F. Pringle
Lists
| 3 books mentioned 1 7 min read
● ●