“The novel is told from the perspective of an unnamed African-American narrator who considers himself to be socially invisible due to the color of his skin,” writes Variety. Following in the footsteps of its adaptation of Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale, Hulu is in the beginning stages of adapting Ralph Ellison‘s Invisible Man. Read our own editor Lydia Kiesling on Ellison’s Invisible Man.
The Not-So-Invisible Man
Get out of the restaurant
Though excellent fiction has been staged in restaurants (Richard Russo’s Empire Falls comes to mind, as well as YA novel Hope was Here), I have to admit Rebecca Makkai at Ploughshares has a point that dining-in-public scenes are getting a bit old. “All the unfolding of napkins and poking at the French fries… it’s filler.”
a hectic, unblanced life
D.T. Max’s forthcoming David Foster Wallace biography, Every Love Story is a Ghost Story, has been excerpted in Newsweeek magazine, and you can read it online.
Weekend Links
The Oscar Blog: Ed has recruited Scott, YPTR, Elizabeth Crane, Jeff, Gwenda, Mark and several others to “live blog” the Oscars on Sunday. I’m convinced that no good can come of this… but you can bet I’ll be reading along.I’ll read what ever Malcolm Gladwell writes, but his 2-part conversation with ESPN.com columnist Bill Simmons on sports (and many other topics) is particularly entertaining.I’m a huge fan of the Comics Curmudgeon blog, which hilariously skewers the newspaper funnies. Now Josh has hit the big time. He’ll be skewering political cartoons for Wonkette.The winners of the 2005 Book Critics Cirle Award will be announced tonight. Here are the finalists.Brokeback Mountain (video link) in Bun-O-Vision.
A History of Beauty
“‘Man is hungry for beauty. There is a void.’ Nine words. Take a moment. Say them aloud. What else is there to be said?” –Arthur Krystal’s essay on Umberto Eco’s History of Beauty, at Powell’s Books. (via Arts & Letters Daily)
But Then Again, Who Wouldn’t Be?
I’m not that into ballet, but if I had to be, I’d be into 1,000 frame-per-second footage of German ballet dancers prancing around to a dance-y remix of Radiohead’s “Everything In Its Right Place.”