In an item posted last weekend, we wrote, “Senator Arlen Specter realizes that there’s no way to endear yourself to Republican primary voters like writing for The New York Review of Books.” The item should have read: “Democratic primary voters.” We apologize for the error.
Correction
Over at the LBC
I put up a post.
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Title Your Novel in Three Easy Steps! or, The Abstraction of Abstraction
We've written about how difficult it can be to find a proper title for a work-in-progress. Lately, however, we've started to notice a certain trend that may make things easier on the budding novelist. Consider the following novels, all published within the last couple years: The Inheritance of Loss; The History of Love; The Story of Forgetting; The God of Small Things; and The Secret of Lost Things.Certainly there's some precedent for titling a work with the prepositional construction "The Blank of Blank." (The Wings of the Dove, The Heart of the Matter, and The Nightmares' forgotten R&B classic "The Horrors of the Black Museum..." come to mind, and and that's just off the top of our heads.) Indeed, pairing a wispy abstraction with something surprisingly concrete can be a recipe for piquancy: Think of The Possibility of an Island or The House of Mirth.The innovation represented by the recent spate of prepositional titles is the pairing of two abstractions. A writer willing to settle for the tried-and-true might consider recombining some of the nouns above to create a title for her manuscript, such as The Secret of God, The Lost Things of Small Things, or The Inheritance of History. But for the truly ambitious, may we suggest the following approach: roll some virtual dice, take the corresponding abstract nouns from Column A and Column B, insert a "the" (or two) and an "of," and you're off to the races!Column A:1. Earnestness2. Persistence3. Irritability4. Malodorousness5. Malice6. WhimsyColumn B:1. Splendor2. Etiquette3. Particle Physics4. Numismatism5. Large Things6. Medium Things
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Bookfinding
Today I happened to walk by one of those thrift stores connected to a hospital, and, thinking they might have a couple of shelves of books, I decided to stop in. I'm glad I did. The books were way in the back in this weird garage-like annex, and the room smelled pretty bad. This made browsing unpleasant, but I had a theory that the odor might have kept prospective shoppers out - more books for me. The store was also right on with their pricing: 50 cents for paperbacks and a dollar for hardcovers, which, in my opinion, should be the standard pricing scheme if the customer has to sift through messy, disorganized shelves. The selection turned out to be pretty great, and I had to restrict myself to only the best books I could find - books that I was surprised enough to see on the shelves that I felt passing them up would be criminal, so I ended up leaving a lot of pretty good stuff behind. If I had bought everything I wanted, I would have had a hard time getting home on the el, and furthermore, empty bookshelf space is somewhat scarce in my apartment these days. So it was only the cream of the crop for me.I grabbed three hardcovers: The Biggest Game in Town by A. Alvarez. I was working at the bookstore when the poker craze started getting pretty big, and this classic from 1983 was one of the books we recommended to people wanting to read up on the game. I also found a copy of Philip Roth's American Pastoral, which I've been told is one of his best. And I was delighted to spot baseball guru Bill James' out of print treatise on the Hall of Fame, Politics of Glory. I also snagged a pocket paperback edition of John Barth's Giles Goat-Boy. All in all, a pretty good haul.
The F. Scott Fitzgerald Short Story Contest
Millions contributor Rodger Jacobs is continuing his efforts to get a street in Los Angeles named after F. Scott Fitzgerald. Now, he's put together a short story competition to further commemorate the author. Here's the release:The film production and web publishing company responsible for the petition drive to name the intersection of Sunset Boulevard and Hayworth Avenue in honor of the late F. Scott Fitzgerald has announced a short fiction competition to further commemorate the author on the sixty-fifth anniversary of his passing. At the time of his demise on December 21, 1940, the celebrated author of The Great Gatsby and Tender is the Night was living at 1443 North Hayworth Avenue in the home of gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. Rodger Jacobs, President of 8763 Wonderland Ltd., is requesting works of original fiction of no more than four hundred words on the subject of F. Scott Fitzgerald's last days in Hollywood. "The stories can deal with Scott directly or indirectly," says Jacobs, "just as long as they somehow address F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood." Entries will be judged on originality and overall style. Prizes will be announced "sometime in the near future." The deadline for short fiction entries is August 1, 2005. Entries may be e-mailed to [email protected] There is no fee for entrants, though Pay Pal donations are suggested to help defray costs involved in mounting the continuing petition drive. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Memorial Petition can be viewed and electronically signed here.
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Jonathan Safran Foer: The Collected Blurbs
For Sayonara, Gangsters by Genichiro Takahashi: "Sayonara, Gangsters is one of those rare books that actually defies description... It's funny, sure. And beautiful. And slightly insane. And haunting. And heart-breaking. But all those words miss the point. The point is you have to read it. So read it."For The Gangster We Are All Looking For by Le Thi Diem Thuy: "A beautiful, deeply moving story of a family. The more I read, the more I felt the family was mine."For It's All Right Now by Charles Chadwick: "This novel is huge -- in size, ambition, intelligence, and heart."For The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done by Sandra Newman: "Sandra Newman has an original way of thinking. The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done is often hysterically funny, profoundly strange, and unbearably beautiful. Often all at once."For My Life with Corpses by Wylene Dunbar: "My Life with Corpses is overwhelming: in its beauty, emotional force, and uniqueness. While I finished the book a few weeks ago already, I have the strange feeling that I'm still reading it -- it's that resonant."For Please Don't Kill the Freshman by Zoe Trope: "I am in awe of Zoe Trope. This book is more than the kind of good story we've become satisfied with. It's more than interesting. It's art."For The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs: "The Know-It-All is funny, original, and strangely heroic. I found myself rooting on Jacobs's quixotic, totally endearing quest."For The Noodle Maker by Ma Jian: "The Noodle Maker is hugely entertaining and deeply serious. It's something to celebrate."
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Oxford English Dictionary (OED) online
The BBC is offering limited online access to the OED as part of a BBC miniseries on the famous (and famously huge) dictionary. Unfortunately, it's only available until February 13, and according to Boing Boing they are trying to limit access to Brits only. However, you may want to try to get in, because I managed to access it from here in Chicago. (I emailed Cory at Boing Boing to suggest that perhaps the restrictions had been lifted, but he chalked it up to the fact that "IP-based filters genuinely suck.") At any rate, considering the astronomical cost of the OED, it's worth a try to check it out while it's free.Update: More details at Language Hat.
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Staying Sane: A Year in Reading (Part 4)
I could not stop. I became a Calvino junkie and read The Nonexistent Knight and The Cloven Viscount, two separate stories collected in one volume as suggested by the titles, and a book along the same lines as The Baron in the Trees. The stories are about an exemplar non-existent knight that the king's army despises because he lacks human vice, and a generous and noble viscount who is split in half during battle, hence losing his good side and becoming evil. Both are great fairy tales with a grain of cynicism, a touch of distrust bred by 20th century politics (Calvino was also a linguist and deeply involved with leftist politics, which at times caused him discomfort), and the humanist wishes of an idealist.As with Kapuscinski, I had to take a break from Calvino, and picked up Arthur Nersesian's Chinese Takeout. I picked Chinese Takeout because the picture on the book cover was of 7B, a one time favorite dive of mine that was four blocks away form our East Village apartment. It was one of those books that I kept seeing and telling myself that I would get it the next time I saw it, just because of its cover. As luck would have it, I really enjoyed the story of Orloff, the book's protagonist. He walks through streets most familiar and beloved, sells books on West 4th street (in front of the NYU library and Stern School of Business), struggles to make it as a painter, lives in the back of his van, deals with junkies, and longs for the days when the lower east side was a cheap haven for artists. A romantic and nostalgic look at the areas currently being overridden by hipsters and $150 torn diesel jeans (my personal favorites). Or (short for Orloff) still exists in Manhattan, and walks those streets and probably does sleep in the back of his van or at the rent controlled apartment of his friend from time to time. Chinese Takeout is a good New York story that one should read on the beach during a vacation or in the subway.Previously: Part 1, 2, 3
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Now that's good stuff.
That's what I call Filibuster-proof comedy.