Henry James wrote a number of odd things about Jewish and Italian immigrants, but is it fair to call him a racist? In The New Criterion, Stephen Miller argues that it isn’t, recalling the time James spent with immigrants on the Lower East Side.
Old World Values
Hot Take!
Tim Parks's review of Han Kang's The Vegetarian has some pretty interesting things to say about the nature of reviewing translation, but it also takes some shots at the novel and its proponents: "Looked at closely, the prose is far from an epitome of elegance, the drama itself neither understated nor beguiling, the translation frequently in trouble with register and idiom. Studying the thirty-four endorsements again, and the praise after the book won the prize, it occurs to me there is a shared vision of what critics would like a work of 'global fiction' to be and that The Vegetarian has managed to present itself as a candidate that can be praised in those terms." Here's a Millions review of Kang's Man Booker International prize-winner.
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Reflecting on Baldwin
Toni Morrison wrote an obituary for James Baldwin in The New York Times, published December 20, 1987 and online for you to read. “Jimmy, there is too much to think about you, and too much to feel. The difficulty is your life refuses summation - it always did - and invites contemplation instead. Like many of us left here I thought I knew you. Now I discover that in your company it is myself I know.” Justin Campbell reflects on Baldwin, race, and fatherhood.
Tuesday New Release Day
New this week: Gary Shteyngart's much buzzed about Super Sad True Love Story, Rick Moody's The Four Fingers of Death (another literary dystopia), and a new Roberto Bolaño collection, The Return. Bonus for GN'R fans: GN'R drummer Steven Adler's tell-all memoir My Appetite for Destruction: Sex, and Drugs, and Guns N' Roses.
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Splendid, Vibrant
Recommended Reading: Tolu Ogunlesi on how “Nigeria’s literary scene has burgeoned into this splendid, vibrant space.”
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Chris Loves Dick
Kathryn Hahn and Kevin Bacon have been cast as Chris and Dick in the television adaptation of Year in Reading alumna Chris Kraus’s beloved book I Love Dick. Pair with this Millions piece on literary magazines in film and TV.
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Come On, Karma
From Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest to George Wickham in Pride and Prejudice, here are five of the most annoyingly unpunished characters in all of literature. Can we petition to have Daisy Buchanan (The Great Gatsby) added to this list?