The first installment in a series of bloggers reading through the shortlist of the Caine Prize for African Writing, Aaron Bady looks at Rotimi Babutunde’s Bombay Republic [pdf]. A full list of participating bloggers is available at the bottom of Bady’s post.
Blogging the Caine Prize
Speculations
Skirmishing With the Eminati
Look out, Darwin -- Wolfe's coming for you. Tom Wolfe's new book, The Kingdom of Speech, which we reviewed a couple of days ago, takes aim at Charles Darwin and Noam Chomsky: "Like an industrial engineer who also makes bespoke dueling pistols in his shed on the weekends, Mr. Wolfe has made a side career of skirmishing with the eminati (his term) in an array of cultural fields. If fighting enlivens one’s mornings, Mr. Wolfe has had little need of caffeine."
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“The Book the Internet Was Invented For”
On the infinite recreation and reimagining of Finnegans Wake, a book that was "crying out for the invention of the web, which would enable the holding of multiple domains of knowledge in the mind at one time that a proper reading requires," from The Guardian.
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The Age-Old Tradition
Scientists are using x-ray to read fragments of 1,300-year-old manuscripts that have been reused as bookbindings. Pair with this Millions essay on private libraries and what books reveal about their readers.
Of Mice and Megabytes
Although Of Mice and Men is an iconic novella about the Great Depression, could it be set in another era? At McSweeney's, Thomas Scott imagines Lennie and George in Silicon Valley. "Well, we’ll have a big vegetable patch and a rabbit hutch and chickens and a 7,000 square-foot Hacienda with a little landing pad on the top deck for a helicopter."
Kafka’s Wound: A Multimedia Treat
The London Review of Books sought out Will Self to help create “a digital literary work that pushed the boundaries of the literary essay well beyond its traditional form.” The effort, they hoped, would “loosen and enhance the structure of the essay, changing the way the reader interacts with the text.” Well, consider that a success. Behold, “Kafka’s Wound” in all its multimedia glory. [Bonus: Millions readers in the UK can catch Will Self's discussion of the digital essay on September 6th.]
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Curiosities
An excerpt of the lost and recently found Alexandre Dumas novel The Last CavalierAn assessment of poetic cliches in VQR. The surprise: some actually improve your chance of getting published.Jennifer Gilmore interviews the criminally underrated Max Apple.That novelists' strike not working out so well.Despite some withering condescension, Robert Gottlieb has interesting things to say about John Steinbeck.Penguin UK offers up some alternative storytelling techniques with its We Tell Stories site. The first is a tale by Charles Cumming told by messages inserted into Google Maps. (Thx, Mrs. Millions)Books cops like. (Thx, Laurie)The trend of the massive hyper-expensive book continues.Daniel Radosh points out that the New York Times has, yet again, published a trend piece on bloggers getting book deals.And finally... The Catalog of Unfit Toys: Finding Delight in the Defective
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