The Elegant Variation

THIS JUST IN FROM THE WINDY CITY

Sam at Golden Rule Jones has spiffied up the place, and he also includes links to his latest on-air book reviews. Stop by and say hi.

L.A. EVENT - EGGERS COMES TO TOWN

Dave Eggers descends on Book Soup tonight to promote the McSweeney's humor collection Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans, and he's bringing Jim Shepard with him.

Tuesday, August 31st 7:00pm DAVE EGGERS presents and signs Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans: The Best of McSweeney's, Humor Category: 1998 - 2003 With contributors Jim Ruland, Alysia Gray Painter, Peter Ferland & more. And. Jim Shepard presents and signs Project X and Love & Hydrogen.

POLITICAL BOOKS?

MSNBC rounds up the political titles that are expected to burn up the marketplace this fall, although the bookseller interviewed seems to reserve all his enthusiasm for Susanna Clarke.

“I think it’s going to be really hot,” says Paul Ingram, a buyer for Prairie Lights Books, in Iowa City, Iowa. “I originally ordered just five and now I have put on another 20. People love those really long fantasy novels, like hers and Neal Stephenson’s.”

Ron picked up a copy of it at BEA, as I recall, and he was quite excited about getting into it. We were overwhelmed by its sheer bulk - the prospect of lugging it him to L.A. was a grim one - and frankly the genre doesn't excite us so we passed it by. We watch the developing buzz with jaded interest.

LORD, I WAS BORN A RAMBLIN' MAN

The Financial Times Travel pages takes a look at Chekhov, that original rambling guy ...

We don't think of Chekhov as a traveller. We tend to think of him sitting at his desk, pen in hand, enduring bouts of desperate coughing, but not as a man withwanderlust. And yet he was one of the most restless Russians who ever lived, with a boundless curiosity for seeing new places (not for nothing did he name one of his dogs Nansen, after the great Norwegian explorer).

KOREAN LITERATURE IN TRANSLATION

In news that we expect will delight our translation hungry friends at the Literary Saloon, Random House announces its plans to bring Korean literature to English speaking audiences.

The Daesan Foundation signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Random House Joongang, Random House's joint venture in Korea, to publish “Random House Daesan Korean Literature Series.”

Accordingly, based on the Daesan Foundation’s translation of Korean literature program, Korean poems, novels, dramas and traditional literary pieces will be translated into English and at least one work is to be published annually through Random House from 2005.

INVISIBLE BESTSELLERS

The CSM presents an unusual bestseller list - the top ten books that no one's yet read. In other news, they also review Susanna Clarke's Booker Prize-longlisted Jonathan Strange & Mr. Morrell, billing it as "Harry Potter for adults" - an utterly novel formulation!

THE BLUFFER'S GUIDE TO THE BOOKER

Although the inauguration of 3am's Booker Blog probably makes our further Booker coverage irrelevant, here's Nilanjana S Roy's "Bluffer's Guide to the Booker", which includes these helpful tips:

The practised bluffer will single out Susanna Clarke (Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, about a magician and his apprentice tangled in the Napoleonic wars) as the dark horse. She will recall the Amazon customer review of Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty: “The bit where the hero dances with Mrs Thatcher high on coke and with a homosexual threesome waiting in the loft is absolutely classic.” She will know that Chimamanda Ngozi’s Purple Hibiscus is also on the Orange Prize shortlist, that Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire has already won a Pulitzer, and that Colm Toibin’s The Master is the best of the sudden rash of books on Henry James.

Then there's more in the "local angle" vein: Cumbria Online pushes Sarah Hall.

LONGFELLOW, HAWTHORNE BIOS

The Boston Globe looks at the criss-crossing paths of Longfellow and Hawthorne, starting at their graduation from Bowdoin College in 1825.

From that coincidence of time and place -- framed by Longfellow's prescient commencement address, "Our Native Writers" -- their lives and careers would cross and circle about over the next four decades.

And that sense of a remarkable coincidence and the subsequent intertwining is heightened and illuminated by the appearance of two masterful biographies, both of them warm and vivid in the portrayal of the two men and equally solid in placing them in the context of their times.

MATTERS NEAR AND DEAR

It's not literary, but the Will at Crescat Sententia turns his keen eye to a subject that is of abiding interest to me (and at least one other blogger I know of) ...

YEAH, IT'S THE FIRST PLACE WE THINK OF

A plan to establish Birmingham as the "creative writing capital" of Britain is struggling under financial burdens.

Its backers envisaged postgraduate courses, glittering literary events and regular writers’ workshops.

But despite moving into donated new premises in January, the two-year-old venture, which has writer and broadcaster Lord Melvin Bragg as its president, is currently not running a single course.

It received a further setback recently when the Birmingham Learning and Skills Council (LSC) decided to cut its funding, believed to have amounted to £100,000 for 2003/04.

IT'S EERILY LIKE LOOKING IN A MIRROR # 47

Carrie at Tingle Alley writes the precise summary of the recent Banville on Bookworm interview that we would have written if we weren't congenitally lazy, right down to the same sound bites that caught our attention.

APRES AOUT, LE DELUGE

The Chronicle offers up this long but handy list of upcoming fall titles. Among those of particular note to us are a new short story collection by William Trevor and the American release of last year's Booker Prize-shortlisted Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall (the untouched UK copy of which still sits anxiously on our TBR shelf).

KUREISHI PROFILE

We sometimes feel like we've pretty much cycled through our embarrassingly small list of preoccupations here and are now reduced to mentioning the same small handful of authors every time they pop up somewhere. Just as we begin to feel self-conscious about it, we remember that it's precisely for that sort of narcisstic cheerleading that the blogosphere was established in the first place. And so it's in that spirit that we direct you to this Telegraph profile of Hanif Kureishi, a writer about whom we've spoken admiringly (if not profoundly) in the past.

"The major white writers of our time never write about race," he observes. "You wouldn't think England had changed in 50 years if you read a book by Julian Barnes or Martin Amis or Jeanette Winterson. They don't – can't – engage with the subject of race. They don't see it as central. There are many reasons: they're afraid of being seen as fools, or racists. But I'd have thought you'd want to engage with the major issues of your day if you wanted to be a proper writer. What do they think they're doing?"

BLOGGING THE RNC IS THE NEW BLACK

In addition to the previously noted dispatches from Joshuah Bearman (who has added a bunch of new posts), Stephen Elliott (whose political title Looking Forward To It is about to be released by Picador) is also blogging the Republican National Convention. (Actually, Steve and Josh are hanging out together.)

A member of the Republican Youth Majority, Tanya Roggers, an Ohio resident recently relocated to Brooklyn, told me their group was pro-choice, pro-environment, and fiscally conservative.

"So you hate George Bush," I said.
"I didn't say that."
I nodded my head. "You despise him."
"We don't agree with everything but we're loyal Republicans."
"I'm going to write that you hate Bush and think he's a scumbag," I told her.
"You can write that," she said.

OBITER DICTA

* Jonathan Coe tells Reuters that writing his recent biography of B.S. Johnson was much harder than writing a novel.

* The Chronicle runs a long profile on Berkeley indie publisher fixture Malcolm Margolin.

* Apparently, it took until AUGUST for the gang at SouthFlorida.com to file their Bloomsday dispatch. Can someone please explain this to us?

* Newsweek, that bastion of All Things Literary, affords a generous one paragraph apiece to Birds Without Wings and Snow. Ahhh, that's the kind of shit that makes America great.

* So how does Checkpoint play in Kansas? Not well. Although that scarcely matters, as the book appears to be something of a royal flop.

* The Vatican has offered a helpful guide to handy Latin phrases such as brevissimae bracae femineae (which means "hot pants").

* The Age runs yet another lousy version of the piece we haven't written comparing Dale Peck and James Wood. Although the more of these things we see, the less compelling the need for comparison becomes.

* Now begins the regional focus Booker coverage. Stuff looks at Kiwi nominee Neil Cross. (And don't even think of reprimanding us - some of our best friends are fruit.) Whereas the Telegraph takes a classist approach.

* The Guardian's "Adaptation of the Week" looks at the film version of Michel Houellebecq's Whatever.

* David Kipen is sending CaliforniaAuthors.com dispatches from the My California road show. (Scroll down to Our Latest News.)

* The Age (bugmenot now required) looks at Twilight of Love, a biography of Turgenev.

* More Isherwood goodies for you, including an audio file of a radio interview.

* Whose hell do you suppose is greater? The author trapped on a plane full of passengers to do a book signing, or the passengers trapped on a plan with an author? We're thinking toss up but in this case, our hearts go with the passengers ...

L.A. DUCKS A BULLET

The First Lady of Limn is staying put in New York. (Link via Moorishgirl.)

FRIDAY ROUNDUP

We're suffering not a little bit at the moment, having learned a painful but valuable lesson that we now share with you free of charge: It is a terrible, terrible idea of have a French lunch consisting of a charcuterie plate the same day you plan to go spinning. Fortunately we are blessed with a superhuman gag reflex, or it would have been quite ugly. But although we're out of immediate danger, we're still feeling decidedly queasy, hence this hit-and-run dump of links. (And if you're not from L.A. and have no idea what spinning is, check it out - here's where we do it. And if you are in L.A. and like to suffer, come meet us there Tuesdays and Thursdays at 7 and Saturdays and Sundays at 5 for the most exhausting hour of physical activity you can find this side of Cityvibe.)

* We've written here ad nauseum about what big Stoppard fans we are. Well, who knew that Seattle is the (self-proclaimed) "most Stoppard-friendly city in the country"? Not us, we assure you.

* The Herald talks to Anita Desai about the explosion of Indian literature. (She finds it "overwhelming.")

* Predictably, there lots o' Booker coverage in the wake of yesterday's long list annoucement. The Herald looks at who was left off (James Kelman and A.L. Kennedy notably); Booker judge Rowan Pelling speaks out on the "absence of big name authors"; and the Guardian focuses on the first-timers on the list, as does the BBC. UPDATE: The Literary Saloon offers this interesting look at the Byzantine world of Booker rules.

* Everything's coming up Isherwood! David Kipen writes thoughtfully about the Isherwood centenial for the Chronicle; and hometown paper the Palisadian-Post (and hey people, we're still looking for a place up there) tries to keep up.

* The Canadians, more or less late for everything, finally look at Dick Lit but deserve huge kudos for not chickening out and resorting to the rather flaccid "Lad Lit" appellation.

* Boy, we really do love TLS; it's our favorite literary publication out there. The latest issue takes on Bill Clinton's My Life (at once "beguiling" and "tedious") and, speaking of snubbed Bookerette A.L. Kennedy, they also review her latest (and don't appear to disagree with the Man Booker folks).

* We also like the London Review of Books, though not nearly as much. In this issue, they take a look at Louis "Where the Fuck is My Laptop" de Bernieres' latest.

* Finally, got three days and a book idea? Then you might just have a novel ...

Well, it's traffic school for us tomorrow (doing 85 on the 73), so our weekend is more or less shot but we do wish you all the best ...

L.A. EVENT - RAY BRADBURY

Stop on by the Barnes and Noble at the Santa Monica Promenade tomorrow and tell old Ray to lighten up and leave Michael Moore the fuck alone. (Interesting fact we learned reading D.J. Waldie's Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles: Apparently, Bradbury doesn't drive a car.)

Ray Bradbury, sci-fi master and author of Fahrenheit 451, discusses his writing and The Cat’s Pajamas: All New Stories, Sat., Aug. 28, noon

BIRNBAUM v. HARUF

Robert Birnbaum - who joins me today in celebrating an anniversary of his own - has posted his IDT chat with Kent Haruf, in which the two "speak about sequels and trilogies, the differences between Plainsong and Eventide, plot and character, Jim Harrison, Zoe Heller, rewriting Eventide, Cormac McCarthy, Gary Fisketjon, Richard Russo's Colby College commencement address, "centers of ambition", Madison WI, the fly over zone, Larry Brown , the film version of Big Bad Love, Cincinnati, William Faulkner and William Kennedy, a beginning of an itch, Carol Coleman's interview with George Bush, James Welch, Steve Yarborough and , uh. more."

Four more years, RB. It's awfully nice to have you around.

BOOKER LONGLIST ANNOUNCED

The Man Booker Prize longlist has just been announced.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Purple Hibiscus
Nadeem Aslam, Maps for Lost Lovers
Nicola Barker, Clear: A Transparent Novel
John Bemrose, The Island Walkers
Ronan Bennett, Havoc, in its Third Year
Susanna Clarke, Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Neil Cross, Always the Sun
Achmat Dangor, Bitter Fruit
Louise Dean, Becoming Strangers
Lewis Desoto, A Blade of Grass
Sarah Hall, The Electric Michelangelo
James Hamilton Paterson, Cooking with Fernet Branca
Justin Haythe, The Honeymoon
Shirley Hazzard, The Great Fire
Alan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty
Gail Jones, Sixty Lights
David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas (Go, Ed!)
Sam North, The Unnumbered
Nicholas Shakespeare, Snowleg
Matt, Thorne Cherry
Colm Tóibín, The Master
Gerard Woodward, I'll go to Bed at Noon

The shortlist will be announced on September 21st and the winner will be announced on October 19.

UPDATE: Per the norm, Maud does a much more diligent job with the same information, providing extensive hyperlinks that we were too lazy to track down.

A PERSONAL NOTE

We generally try to keep the personal stuff to a minimum around here but we did want to mention that it was exactly eighteen years ago today that an obnoxious, smart-assed New Yorker arrived in Los Angeles to pursue what would amount to a largely failed writing career. We're still obnoxious and smart-assed but oh, if we'd have known then what we know now ...

Still, despite some rocky waters just now, it hasn't been all bad here in the City of Angels. In fact, we've been converted with all the obnoxious zeal that implies. We wouldn't live anywhere else (except maybe Paris), and we're particularly pleased with the new cabal of literary pals we've made since starting up TEV.

It's appropriate, we suppose, that we just finished up a review that will appear in the Los Angeles Review of D.J. Waldie's Where We Are Now: Notes from Los Angeles. It's a nice marker in a story that's unfolded in ways we would never have imagined.

And, as if it were a very special anniversary present offered up just for me, John Banville is interviewed on Bookworm today. Bliss.

BIG TENT, MY ASS

OK, so we know this a literary blog, and we do try to keep the politics to a minimum. But as the election draws nearer, it's inevitable that the frequency of political posts is going to experience something of an uptick here. Nor will we make any particular attempt to be even-handed. We're full-throated liberals here, who think W. is without question the worst president since Hoover, and we'll devote our precious blog space to unseating the clown.

In that spirit, we recently raved about Joshuah Bearman's hilarious reading at the Vermin on the Mount series, and noted that he'd be blogging the RNC. We'll he's filed his first dispatch with what appears to be a bonafide scoop, in inside look at how the party moderates were were essentially sent out to play in the hallway during the Republican Platform Committee meetings.

This time, the entire Protect Our Families subcommittee meeting went by without even an opportunity for Stone or her Log Cabin collaborators to propose their language. Former RNC Chairman and current Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, whose chairmanship itself was perceived as a signal that the RNC was not interested in compromise with the moderates, sailed through the draft, re-affirming it quickly, despite knowing there were people in the audience who wanted to be heard. “I talk slow, and move fast,” Barbour later said to colleagues.

Joshuah also mentions in passing Cheney's recent remarks about leaving the question of gay marriage to the states. Once we got over our initial shock at the statements, we saw his comments for the utterly brilliant Karl Rovian* feint that it is. It gives Cheney a chance to appear like a reasonable guy and a human being. It's meant to make moderates comfortable, even as conservatives know that the man at the top of the ticket has already expressed his support for a constitutional amendment. It's a win-win for the administration and an incredibly cynical piece of politicking.

* Karl Rovian has replaced Machiavellian as our adjective of choice.

YOU HAVE TO ASK?

This Seattle PI piece on the anticipated supremacy of political titles this fall includes a chat with Cynthia Ozick (of all people).

As 76-year-old Cynthia Ozick prepares for her first ever book tour, she wonders how she'll respond to a question that seems so far from her own work but so near to the lives of readers: Who will you vote for in November?

"Of course, like everyone else, I'm enormously bound up in politics, more than I have ever been," says Ozick, an acknowledged homebody from New Rochelle, N.Y., who nonetheless will travel in support of her new novel, "Heir to the Glimmering World."

We're pretty sure we've mentioned it before but we're great admirers of Ozick's essay collection Quarrel and Quandary. (Her essay "Lovesickness" is almost unbearably moving.)

THE BAD NEWS IS NOW HE HAS MARK SANDERSON'S E-MAIL ADDRESS

Gerard Jones, that loveable crank and bete noire of literary agents the world over, makes a mention in the Telegraph's Literary Life column.

STARBUCKS TO THE RESCUE?

OK, we know Starbucks is supposed to be evil incarnate and all that but this press-release-masking-as-story about a Starbucks-sponsored book drive to help fill the shelves of some Oregon schools and libraries gave us at least a little pause.

Since the program's inception in 1998, the Starbucks ABC Book Drive has generated more than 2 million books for elementary schools throughout the country.

Apparently, they've been doing this for some time. Who knew? Not us but we've never been accused of being terribly on the ball ...

LOOKS LIKE A UNIVERSITY OF WALES ... *

The Library of Wales Initiative has been set up to improve access to Wales' literary classics by republishing them and circulating them to schools and libraries free of charge.

Mr Pugh said: "The Library of Wales is designed to address a major market failure - Wales is a small nation that has produced a rich quantity and quality of literature in the past but most of it is inaccessible.

"Either it's out of print or difficult to get hold of, so you need to trawl the internet or perhaps take a trip to Hay-on-Wye (which has many second-hand bookshops)"

* Obscure-ish Beatles reference.

VOTE EARLY, VOTE OFTEN

Website voting has commenced for the African American Literary Award Show. Stop by and cast your vote. Between giggles.

L.A. LIT MIXER

Last night's Mediabistro- Darcy Cosper-hosted mixer at the Farmers Market brought out around 75 people to meet and chat with authors Leslie Schwartz (Angels Crest) and David Ulin (The Myth of Earthquakes). Scribes of every stripe mixed and chatted on the second floor of the market, picking up signed copies of the books on offer. Among the area authors spotted at the event, we counted Aimee Bender, Meghan Daum, Rachel Resnick and Bernard Cooper. We spent most of our time lingering ineptly on the fringes, chatting with FOTEVs Scott O'Connor, Julianne Flynn and Jim Ruland. Nice to see this scene continuing to develop, and we look forward to the next one.

KUBLER-ROSS DIES

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist who identified the five stages of grief experienced by the terminally ill (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) has died.

Kubler-Ross moved to Arizona nine years ago after a series of strokes left her partially paralyzed on her left side. In a 2002 interview with The Arizona Republic, Kubler-Ross said she was ready to die.

"I told God last night he's a damned procrastinator," she said then

EURO LIT 101

Tiscali.Europe offers its one-stop shop to the whole of European literature, replete with not terribly interesting commentary but a slew of author photos.

DAVID LODGE PROFILE

The Telegraph runs this nice profile of the "famously dour" David Lodge. (How we'd love to be called famously dour ... )

His heroes, such as the shabby academic Philip Swallow, often swerve off the rails but by the final chapter have returned to their humdrum lives. Lodge too has always been ruled by caution, describing the copious sex in his books as being written from the stance of a "war correspondent, not a combatant".

"Of course one occasionally longs for liberation," he smiles wryly. "But I believe monogamy is more likely to generate happiness than a lot of temporary relationships."

ALL BORGES, ALL THE TIME

OPTR has garnered deserved accolades for his recent run on all things Borges. If you haven't perused the offerings, stop by, start with Part 10 and go backwards. (Our favorite is the colloquy bringing together JLB, James Wood, Donald Barthelme and Richard Hugo.)

JOIN US FOR LUNCH?

Urgent affairs of state (read: Knob Creek) prevent us from greeting you with the usual morning load. Do check back sorta noonish, by which time we hope to have slapped ourselves into coherency. Or not.

PAULA FOX, PARIS: 1946

We've only just gotten around to reading Paula Fox's excellent essay Paris: 1946 in the current Paris Review, in which she beautifully describes the gray, uncertain days of postwar Paris. She captures the city so perfectly, with all its ineffable sadness, that we feel like we just stepped off the plane.

When I had a few francs, I spent them at a café on the Place de Longchamps, a block or so from my pension, where I could order a glass of Beaujolais and a plate of string beans in vinaigrette for the equivalent of fifteen cents. At the lunch hour, I could see through large clear windows people strolling along streets and sidewalks, carrying baguettes. One end of the loaf was always missing, bitten off and eaten by its purchaser, who wanted the pleasure of its freshness, or simply because it was there, a Parisian habit.

THINGS WE'RE THINKING ABOUT

We're not terribly deep thinkers or anything like that but a couple of things are buzzing around our tiny brain these days and we thought we'd widen the conversational circle on it. It's either that or sit endlessly like Steve McQueen bouncing a baseball off the wall of our cell.

First question is this: Robert Birnbaum's chat with Rick Hertzberg got us thinking - once again - about the question of how his book was assigned for review in NYTBR. It seemed pretty obvious to us at the time that assigning the book to a right-wing clown like Richard Brookhiser pretty much declares that you've got no intention of judging the book fairly. And yet, the obvious counterpoint is clear: Is it any more fair to hand the book to, say, Frank Rich? One sees both sides. So that brings us to an obvious question - there's a void to fill, and who best to step in? In a viciously partisan season, how does one responsibly assign coverage of political titles? We've been wracking our brains (admittedly an unimpressive feat) to come up with a name of someone we'd have assigned to the book, and so far nothing. So, you get to be Sam Tanenhaus for a day. Who do you give the review to?

The other point we're fulminating upon comes from a discussion we've had with a litblogging pal, wherein we discussed our shared discomfort with literary journals which prominently feature their editorial staff as contributors. We both detect the whiff of something vaguely unseemly to such an enterprise. And yet, within two days, we chanced upon two stories that suggested other perspectives. First off, there's Sven Birkert's much-linked-to piece about literary journals, in which one finds this interesting passage:

Think of the taste-making triumphs that were T.S. Eliot's Criterion, F.R. Leavis's Scrutiny, Cyril Connolly's Horizon, and Stephen Spender's Encounter. These were the heralds of Modernism, giving early notice of the names that are by now half-embalmed on high school and college syllabi -- names like W.H. Auden, George Orwell, Marianne Moore, and Gertrude Stein.

In a related point, in his review of the new Borges biography for the Atlantic, Christopher Hitchens mentions an article Borges contributed to Proa, the journal he co-founded. (Side note: Hitchens' review, which required us to purchase the magazine since Atlantic is now off-limits online, managed to single-handedly finish off any lingering enthusiasm we once had for him. It's a pompous, bloated, self-indulgent turn that focuses more on his own meeting with Borges than on the book itself. We found ourselves quite pleased that Atlantic has taken itself offline.)

All of which begs the question: Clearly, there is a long, fairly glorious tradition of writers contributing to their own journals. Why launch them at all, but for the burning need for a platform, the desire to get one's thoughts out into the world? So when did this aesthetic (for lack of a better word) change? What has contributed to this modern fastidiousness (or perhaps fussiness) - which we certainly share - about separating the lines between editors and contributors? And how reasonable an impulse is it?

Screenplay submitted, chapter finished. It's amazing what prattle rushes in to fill the void when you're not working ...

EGG ON OUR FACE

We can't tell you how thoroughly it wounds our pride when we read about Southern California literary news elsewhere. Ah well, fallibility thy name is TEV and anyway it serves the Southern California Booksellers Association right for not letting us know themselves that they'd announced the nominees for their 2004 Book Awards.

Of course, having examined their choices, we're not terribly impressed. (Link via Sarah, who got it from Aldo.)

CONROY TO DEPART IOWA

The AP reports that Frank Conroy is stepping down as head of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop. (Registration required but bugmenot offers crockett@tubbs.com/miamivice, which is pretty damn funny.)

Conroy, who wrote the acclaimed memoir "Stop-Time," described his job as both exhausting and exhilarating. He said he receives about 750 applications each year for 25 openings and it takes three months to review all the material. But the reward is precious: working with some of the world's most gifted young writers.

"When I walk in the room, here are 12 or 13 incredibly bright people. It's like champagne in there," he said.

Sometimes champagne, sometimes castor oil. Conroy is known for his blunt, confrontational approach and acknowledged Monday that he had made one student cry and another student faint.

We'd normally make a snotty MFA joke here, but the thought of weeping, fainting students is enough to send us off happily for the day. (And yes, you guessed it - Birnbaum has interviewed him.)

MORE ON DRUM MAGAZINE

Last week we demonstrated what we knew was our pretty staggering ignorance of the history of the South African literary scene. Fortunately for us (and for you), we have readers down there, and Andie Miller sent us a few links detailing a bit more about the illustrious history of Drum Magazine, including this helpful overview of "The Drum Decade" and this lengthy essay which includes a perspective on the impact of Drum today. And finally, this title is recommended, although obtaining it might not be easy. (Thanks, Andie! We're still trying to answer that jaywalking question for you.)

GUEST ESSAY: THE IDEAL READER

Daniel Hayes, whose forthcoming book Tearjerker will be released by the excellent Graywolf Press in October, sends us along this essay, which we thought interesting enough to burden you with. We expect to weigh in some time in the near future with our own thoughts on same.

A VERY STRANGE FORM OF INTIMACY
By Daniel Hayes

1

Every so often, writers are asked if they have an ideal reader in mind. (John Updike once spoke of a teenage boy in a library, walking the aisles and pulling books off the shelves, more or less randomly, looking for literary adventure.) And if writers don’t have an answer to this question, presumably they’re writing for themselves—not solipsistically, necessarily, but with the pleasure of expressing themselves, regardless of publication or readership.

When asked this question about audience, I’m always tongue-tied. And yet I’m very much not writing for myself. The idea that there’s an inherent pleasure in writing rubs me the wrong way. The impulse to write—the nagging imperative at the center of my life—is fundamentally exhibitionistic. I want people to see, to take notice. And opening your trench coat to the mirror in front of you is only wasted effort. Publication, with its implication of audience, is crucial to my identity as a writer.

But then who is this audience, my preferred readership—if not myself, if not a teenage boy in the library, if not some sophisticate in a Manhattan café with my book in tow? Since the question of audience is important to me, why can’t I identify, at least in fantasy, whom I’m writing for? And without anyone specifically in mind, why isn’t it enough to be writing for my own pleasure and curiosity?

Continue reading "GUEST ESSAY: THE IDEAL READER"

NO BED OF ROSES

The Guardian runs a brief excerpt from Dale Salwak's collection Living with a Writer, which includes contributions from Margaret Drabble, John Updike, Paul Theroux and Malcolm Bradbury.

But as many of the essays testify, life with a writer can be troubling, too. "No matter how warm, how engaged as a human being," says Amanda Craig, "there is this necessary detachment that does not sit easily with a happy love-life or a well-balanced family." Essays about Nadine Gordimer, Somerset Maugham, Mary Ann Caws, Peter Levi or Betty Fussell, for example, reminded us of the inevitable tug-of-war between solidarity and solitude that writers face every day in their work. Writing is necessarily an intensely solitary activity, which only another author, perhaps, can fully understand or tolerate, yet writers' loved ones are obliged to accept it as part of the wondrous but also burdensome freight that goes with living with a writer.

Now ain't that the truth?