Author: bythefirelight

Javier Marias Talks to His Readers About His New Book and Other Things

~ bythefirelight

Javier Marias participated in a chat at El País and in the brief session he answered questions on language, his writing, and literature. There were several questions about his constant pessimism, especially in his weekly article in El País (something I long ago got tired of reading). One in particular wanted to know why he didn’t focus on other countries, but he said he knows Spain best and will stick to that. Continuing in his pessimistic way he made several mentions of the continued “deterioro del español de España” (deteriation of Spanish in Spain). To me it sounded just like a cranky old man when he was on that topic. Language changes and there is not point in complaining about it, but I think that is what he likes most to do.

About his writing he was asked in English language structures have crept into it and he said sometimes he does that to enrich his language, but only when it makes sense. He has begun a new book and the only thing he really knows is that it will be pessimistic, too. He is about half way through, but for the last year he has been on a book tour, something that he has found boring, and is looking to get back to his work.

Finally, he does know how to use a computer, he just doesn’t like to write his books and articles with a computer. And when asked the 3 best novels of the 20th century he said, Lolita by Nabokov, Light in August by Faulkner, and Catcher in the Rye by Salinger.

deterioro del español de España

Luis García Montero Reading at the University of Washington

~ bythefirelight ~ 2 Comments
Luis Farcia Montero
Luis García Montero Reading 3/3/2010

The Spanish poet Luis García Montero read at the University tonight (3/3/2010) to a packed room of students and academics. He read 8 poems from his body of work that the graduate students had translated into English. I’m not that familiar with Spanish poets and so had no idea what to expect, although I had seen his interview on El Público Lee. He is considered one of Spain’s best poets and is considered a realist poet who uses the elements from the everyday to express emotion or the experience of living. The poems that he read were very interesting and would be worth a return to. While he is a realist, the poems did have a good sense of imagery and didn’t slide into that reportage that is so real it describes nothing but itself and seems to afflict many of the American poets I’ve read and seen recently. Before each poem he explained where the ideas came from and they were often from the most basic experiences, but went beyond the moment he explained and captured something about modern living. The one I remember most was his poem to his mother. It was a reflection on the dreams she sacrificed to her family that in the era of Franco were not possible. And although he fought with her as young man who was experiencing the transition to democracy, he now sees her as someone who was so much more.

Samandall – Graphic Novel from Beirut on-line

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

The blog Arabic Literature (in English) tipped me off to the Beirut based Samandal magazine of “Picture Stories from here and there.” While they don’t require the art to be from Lebanon or in Arabic or French, most of the writers and artists from the first four issues are from that region of the world. You can down load the first four issues of the magazine in pdf format. I looked through some of the issues and there was a wide range of stories and artistic styles that make the magazine a good read. Supposedly you can get issue from Forbidden Planet Comics in NY City, although it is not listed on their website.

Issue 1

Issue 2

Issue 3

Issue 4

Read at the Hugo House 3/1/2010

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

I did a little reading (2 pages to be exact) of a story called Hostages last night at the Hugo House. There was an interesting collection of readers. One woman read a poem that didn’t really seem like a poem, but what was interesting was when she sang parts of it. It was a welcome change from some of the slow talking symbolists. At the opposite spectrum was the Mexican American comedian who gave us 5 minutes of funny stand up. He had great delivery and sure knows how to wait for the laughs. The reading series actually tends to always have a couple of really interesting presenters.

New Quarterly Conversation Available

~ bythefirelight

The Quearterly Conversation has just published its 19th edition. A few articles and reviews that look interesting:

From The Girl with the Golden Parasol by Uday Prakash

By Jason Grunebaum

The Girl with the Golden Parasol follows Rahul, a non-Brahmin, who finagles his way as a student into the department of Hindi: one of the most corrupt in the university, and a “den of Brahminism.” He does so after falling utterly for Anjali, a Brahmin girl, who, through simple bad luck, could find a home in no other department. The narrative chronicles exactly how the powers-that-still-be in India have harnessed globalization to further consolidate power over language and culture at the most local of levels. It’s also a love story, and a tale of students protesting the corruption of the Indian university system.

On Jonathan Swift’s Poetry

By Patrick Kurp

In the popular mind Swift remains a one-book author, and even ambitious readers may be unaware he wrote poetry. But scholars have identified roughly 280 poems in English . . .

Per Petterson and The Masculine Question

By Adam Gallari

Petterson, whose work calls to mind the reserved nature of such “masculine” writers as Knut Hamson and Richard Yates, makes a more difficult target than present-day male writers exploring the masculine question through worlds of hyper-violence and hyper-reality. They are the men at the bar talking a good fight, while Petterson is the guy in the corner.

Reviews

Fascism, Art, and Mediocrity: Monsieur Pain by Roberto Bolaño

Review by Stephen Henighan
Precise and dramatic yet suffused with a dreamy suggestiveness, Monsieur Pain is a real discovery and a substantial addition to the growing Bolaño library in English.

Word Games and Surreal Imagery: The System of Vienna By Gert Jonke

Review by Matthew Jakubowski

Jonke’s writing isn’t difficult, though his sentences can stretch on into multi-page masterpieces, and he’s a fan of word games and surreal imagery. But beneath these formal surfaces and experimental style (some have called Jonke a “text composer”), these stories are frequently tender and funny; for all the book’s curiosities and through-the-looking-glass moments, System proves Jonke was that rare thing: a huge, rebellious talent with tremendous heart.

Devotion to the Book: Rex by Jose Manuel Prieto

Review by Geoff Maturen
Rex’s narrative structure—consisting of twelve “commentaries” written some time after the events have occurred, and addressed to J.’s former student Petya—offers an initial clue that it is not a straightforward novel. As becomes evident, J. is not really concerned with relating what has happened. Rather, he seizes upon the events as a series of “teaching moments,” ostensibly to instruct Petya, but, one suspects, really intended as a way for J. to come to terms with the trajectory his life has taken.

Correspondence Theory: The Abyss of Human Illusion by Gilbert Sorrentino

Review by Daniel Green

In his now posthumously released (and presumably final) novel, The Abyss of Human Illusion, Sorrentino again offers a relatively brief work (150 pages) built out of narrative fragments. As Christopher Sorrentino points out in his introductory note, the most obvious features of the novel’s formal structure are its division into fifty numbered sections.

Existential Mysteries: Fugue State by Brain Evenson

Review by Salvatore Ruggiero
Evenson’s story collection has characters who try to dissociate themselves from their beginnings (or who have their beginnings redefined by others), who consciously neglect previous happenings and logical prognostications to believe what they want to believe to make the best of their situation at hand. They look at their past as a constellation, trying to fit the events in order so that it makes the now more palatable. It’s an unrealistic notion, but it’s one that is aptly accentuated by the gothic and grotesque nature of these stories.

A Sensual Anti-Novel: Juan the Landless by Juan Goytisolo

Review by Gregory McCormick

In grappling with Peter Bush’s recent re-translation of Juan Goytisolo’s 1974 novel Juan the Landless, I kept wondering why we read at all. Goytisolo’s book is notoriously challenging: there’s no real punctuation save frequent colons, and the book is full of shifting protagonists and pronouns and constant pressure on the language, as though Goytisolo aims to make the text itself implode. So why do we read, and what can be said about a book seemingly created to subvert the entire act of reading?

Humor in the Face of the Tragical: The Golden Calf by Ilya Ilf and Evgeny Petrov

Review by Karen Vanuska
What if your country was in a midst of a purge of all private wealth, yet all you longed to do was to get your hands on a million rubles and run off to Rio de Janeiro? Well, if you were affable and clever Ostap Bender, the hero of The Golden Calf, you would scheme your way into a fortune.

Reimagining Greek History: The Lost Books of The Odyssey by Zachary Mason

Review by Michael Moreci
When it comes to the elusive concept of authorship, there’s no shortage of reference points. From Harold Bloom’s The Anxiety of Influence to Jonathan Lethem’s “The Ecstasy of Influence,” the definition of authorship is both a polarizing and fascinating topic. In his debut novel The Lost Books of the Odyssey, Zachary Mason takes this debate a step further by conjuring a set of interpretations to a story whose authorship has sparked many academic studies: Homer’s Odyssey.

Interviews

Gert Jonke’s Radical Compassion: The Vincent Kling Interview

Interview by Matthew Jakubowski
I looked up—there was Jonke at the bus stop. And he got on the bus. And I thought, “OK, he’s going to sit next to me.” I know it. And he did. He sat right next to me. And it wasn’t a very crowded bus. And I thought, “OK, you’re never supposed to talk to strangers in Europe—I’m doing it.” So I just said, “You’re Herr Jonke, I believe?” And he said, “Yes, why?” And I said, “Well, I’m writing a scholarly article on you.” He said, “You have to be from Great Britain because nobody from the United States knows who I am.”

The Jason Grunebaum Interview

Interview by Annie Janusch
“No U.S. publishing house has brought out a single living Hindi novelist in translation in more than a generation.” Hindi translator Jason Grunebaum discusses the state of Hindi writing, language, and publishing—and what American readers are missing out on.

New Words Without Borders – Poetry

~ bythefirelight

A new Words Without Borders featuring international poetry was published today. Featured just in time for the upcoming appearance in Seattle of Luis García Montero is one of his poems.

On-line Graphic Novel About Iranian Election and Aftermath

~ bythefirelight

The excellent blog Arabic Literature (in English) turned me on to this site. It is a graphic novel about the aftermath of the Iranian election in 2009. Written by a Persian (American) writer, an Arab artist and a Jewish editor it and “Zahra’s Paradise weaves together a composite of real people and events.”  It comes out Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in installments of one four to six page panel, which in itself I like. There is something about stories that are published serially that makes the experience of reading them interesting. There are only a few installments, so it is a little difficult to tell how good it is going to be, but a first read it is interesting. I’ll be curious to see how the art evolves, if at all during the run. I imagine it is a difficult task to create the same characters week after week in the same style.

You can start at the beginning here, or go to the most recent episode.

Zahra’s Paradise isn’t just a cemetery where the world comes to an end. It’s also a womb, a garden, where the world is reborn. Sure, Neda is dead, Sohrab is dead, Mohsen is dead, and they’re all buried in Zahra’s Paradise. But just as there is death, so there is life and light bursting out of their shadow. Their virtual reflection, wrapped as fictional characters, allows us to raise our own imaginary army to intervene in history in real time.

Zahra’s Paradise is a wall drawn around the constitution of Iran’s children. Initially, I wanted to avoid grief by taking refuge in farce. The events in Iran, the protests, broke through. Every day, we’d catch glimpses of Iran’s youth (anyone under eighty), their faith, dreams, courage and cool, breaking out through an electronic wall. But their story appeared as fragments scattered across the face of time. Zahra’s Paradise is the garden where we’ve tried to piece together the fragments, and put a name and face to the story. Mehdi.

Arabic Literature (in English)

A Guide to Online Fiction at the Millions

~ bythefirelight

The Millions posts a nice overview of some on-line fiction that David Backer has found. Some of it looks genre shaping, others such as Words Without Borders are more traditional literary reviews. The article is sure to have something for all tastes.

First, look Ben White’s Nanoism. White is a medical school student in Austin who’s developing the quality and presentation of twitter-sized fiction (140 characters or less). This isn’t a new form of fiction: fragments have existed from Gilgamesh to Kafka. But now these small pieces of language have won a currency in our minute-to-minute lives, a chirping and ambient speech. Sites have come about to present these “litwits” (Escarp, Thaumatrope, Outshine, PicFic). The difference with White’s stuff, both his own writing and the writing he publishes, is that in it you can see the litwit taking shape as a valid form, shaped by our technology, for getting at the truth.

Who I Am Not

~ bythefirelight ~ 3 Comments

This came up recently and so I thought I would let everyone know I am not the author of this work, although I once owned a copy. I have no idea if it is any good because I never got around to reading it.

This isn't my book
This isn't my book

Spanish Poert Luis García Montero in Seattle 3/3/2010

~ bythefirelight

LA SOLEDAD COMPARTIDA / A SHARED SOLITUDE
Please join us for a bilingual poetry reading with Spanish poet LUIS GARCÍA
MONTERO (Granada, 1958).  Widely considered the most important poet and critic
of his generation, García Montero is a leading proponent of the �Poetry of
Experience,� the dominant trend in Spanish poetry since the 1990s.  He has
received many prestigious awards, including the Adonais Prize and the Loewe
Prize, as well as the National Poetry Prize and the National Critics Award.
Students in Spanish 596 will read their translations of his poetry for this
event.

Wednesday, March 3
7 PM
Smith Hall 205 (UW Campus)
Free and open to the public

Review at TQC on Borges’ Lectures from the Argentine Master

~ bythefirelight

Daniel Pritchard has written an interesting review at the Quarterly Conversation of Borges’ Lectures from the Argentine Master: Seven Nights. I’d been curious if the book was worth reading. Although it has his similar themes, they sound perceptive and erudite in a way that I find his late fiction isn’t. His latter stories, while continuing with his themes of the other and mirrors, often seem repetitive and don’t have the fictive sparkle of Ficiones, as if he just wanted to write philosophy. By the time 1977 rolls around, I think lectures might have been the best vehicle for him.

The assertion of Jorge Luis Borges’s literary genius is today assumed and completely unremarkable, and since many superior critics have elaborated it, I will refrain from boring you with redundancy. However, it is occasionally overlooked that Borges is also a philosophical genius—philosophical, that is, in that he is completely in love with knowledge, with the pleasure that knowledge for its own sake provides him—and although he is a lover of knowledge, he never declines into reverential pedagogy. Knowledge, to Borges, is not for the knowing, nor for the asserting over and condemnation of others, nor for proving others wrong, but for the pleasure of discovery.

In these lectures, Borges uses his genius to provide that gift of discovery, an experience akin to poetry, “something as evident, as immediate, as indefinable as love, the taste of fruit, of water.” Of the truths themselves, he is always humble. One believes or else one does not; the mind is a malleable thing so that, as he says in the lecture on nightmares, “we may draw two conclusions, at least tonight; later we may change our minds.” And besides, most of what is believed is only an illusion, “our ignorance of the complex machinery of causality.” Like Socrates, Borges is most sure only of the fact that we are mostly ignorant, that there are obscure mechanisms imperceptibly at work in our lives. Whether we decide to call these machinations magic, or God, or fate, each explanation is yet another expression of the consequences of unknown acts.

Javier Marias Interview on Bookworm

~ bythefirelight

Michael Silverblatt interviewed Javier Marias about his trilogy Your Face Tomorrow for his most recent episode of Bookworm. It is an interesting conversation, although one gets the impression that Marías is brushing aside Silverblatt’s often baroque questions. The first part of the interview is here and the second part will be here.

Borges Lost Translations at the Guradian

~ bythefirelight

The Guardian UK (via Words Without Borders) has a short bog post about some translations Borges put together with Norman Thomas di Giovanni of some of his works. It sounds like a true Borges-like project.

Nonetheless, what they produced during this period were not simple translations. Some of their time was given to the collaborative composition of original versions of Borges’s stories in English. Borges’s grandmother was from the Midlands, and he was consequently fluent in English, albeit in a reportedly antiquated turn-of-the-century style. So di Giovanni earned equal writing credit for versions of stories including Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Library of Babel and The Lottery in Babylon.

48 Year Old Worker Becomes Literary Success in Spain

~ bythefirelight

David Monteagudo, el obrero escritor (the writing worker), has become a literary success in Spain in the last few months. Coming from obscurity to publish the book Fin (End), he has become part triumph of the persistent and a publishing feel good story. The reviews I believe have been good. He has lived a hard life in a box factory but it has given him some humility about the arts. You can read an interview with him here.

Juan Rulfo Reading His Stories Luvina And Tell Them Not to Kill Me

~ bythefirelight

Archivosonoro.org has two recordings of Juan Rulfo reading his two short stories, Luvina and Diles que no me maten (Tell Them Not to Kill Me). The way he reads them really gives a different color to the stories than I originally envisioned. Luvina is my favorite Rulfo story and it is great to hear him read it. The recordings are a little scratchy, but certainly listenable.

Celebrating the Indepedent Book Store – Madrid’s Short Story Only Shop

~ bythefirelight

Some say that Spain has been enjoying a renaissance of the short story. You can see part of that in Madrid’s Tres Rosas Amarillas (Three Yellow Roses) which only carries short stories. It isn’t a big shop, but it looks interesting. It makes me almost wish I was going to Madrid this year. For those inclined, you can find a short story by Hipólito G. Navarro written for the shop (pdf). I haven’t read it yet. His page of recommended short stories is an interesting mix of Spanish and international.

Richard Hugo House to Host Writers Conference May 21-23

~ bythefirelight

According to the Hugo House’s website they will be hosting a conference focusing on how one finds readers. This is a nice change to see, because while the Hugo House is a good resource (I am a member and read there occasionally) they typically only offer classes and if you are not interested in classes their program isn’t of much use.Looking forward to see if it will be interesting.

On the weekend of May 21-23, Richard Hugo House will be hosting its first writers’ conference. The topic will be: Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century.

Our focus will be on exploring the changing literary landscape and the options available to writers for getting their work out in the world and into the hands of readers. While we will certainly look at traditional publishing models, what we’re really interested in is showcasing new possibilities that writers in our community may not be aware of, from the traditional to the off-the-wall. We’ll look at ways writers can promote themselves and their work directly to their readers, and offer hands on practical workshops on basic tools of the writing business from creating a pre-pub platform to building your own website.

Registration for Finding Your Readers in the 21st Century will open on April 5 for Hugo House members and April 12 for the general public.

Elliott Bay Books Update at the Stranger – To Open on Tax Day

~ bythefirelight

The Stranger has a quick review of the new Elliott Bay Books. They note that it will probably be opening on April 15, 2010. It will not be carrying used books, but I don’t think that was really their thing

The Comedian, Days of Wine and Roses, A Wind from the South – A Review

~ bythefirelight

This post concludes my reviews of The Golden Age of Television (The Criterion Collection).

The Comedian

The Comedian is the most dynamic of all the plays in the collection and Mickey Rooney is impressive as a manic and selfish comedian who uses anyone he comes in contact with. The story follows a comedian as he works to put together his next show for television, and his head writer who is struggling to come up with new material and is quickly realizing that he no longer can write comedy. The characters offer two sides to the conflict between the relentless machine that is entertainment and the individual who is caught in the machine. Rooney’s comedian demands everything from those around him, at times manic, at others desperate and scared, but always demanding that everyone recognize him as the only thing anyone should be paying attention to. On the other hand, O’Brien’s character knows the comedian is the worst kind of human being, one he shouldn’t even be near. Each actor captures the essence of these positions, Rooney with his fast talking, and O’Brien with his noir like voice that suggests a world weary wisdom. In the middle of the two is Mel Torme who plays Rooney’s slavish brother that Rooney uses at ever chance he can. One wants to feel sorry for Torme, but to break free of the Comedian like O’Brien does, takes a will power he does not have. While O’Brien escapes the beast and regains his soul as happens in so many of these dramas, the conclusion, as Rooney leads Torme back to his dressing room, is anything but pleasing. While Requiem for a Heavyweight is the most well know of Serling’s works, the Comedian is probably his best and still feels fresh even though it was shot in 1957.

Days of Wine and Roses

While Days of Wine and Roses is obviously a problem story, a story designed to explain a problem, it is well produced and still interesting. While the framing device, a lecture at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting works to give an over arching thread to the story, it also lends the show an air propaganda, as if the writer wanted to tell everyone how good AA is. While that is not true, addiction narratives so often have a triumphalest endings that celebrate the road to recovery. Days of Wine and Roses charts the well worn path to addiction: at first alcohol is fun; then it begins to interfere; then one looses a job and goes broke; finally, one hits rock bottom and after a few tries, recovers. What makes the story interesting more than the moments of alcoholic madness is the how the use of alcohol is presented. First, the couple is described as a couple who likes to drink. 50 years later and decades into the recognition that of addiction as an illness, to describe yourself as someone who likes to drink is awkward at best. Sure for many people it is socially acceptable to binge drink, but it is really only acceptable to say that you enjoy beer, wine or whatever. It isn’t the act you enjoy, but the beverage, and hopefully understand you should do it in moderation. Alcohol is everywhere. That one could be hired mostly to go out drinking with a client isn’t really acceptable, either. Days of Wine and Roses reflects well the two martini lunches you see in Mad Men or read about in the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The other thing that makes the story palatable, is the stark ending. Cliff Robertson, whose character battles addiction, finally is sober, but realizes he must give up his wife if she is going to continue to drink. The ending is not soft and though Robertson’s character has refused to be what we would call an enabler, the starkness of it, for its time, is startling and refreshing. Days of Wine and Roses doesn’t tread new ground, but it does show a bleakness that is even now can be difficult to get into a TV program.

A Wind from the South

A Wind from the South covers the 48 period when a young Irish woman in a tourist town realizes that she can be more than a little town lets her. At the same time a middle aged man in a loveless marriage realizes it is over. In an era of separate beds for married couples on TV this was probably ahead of the times. Yet it is also a little silly when the two characters declare their love for each other after a few days. Nevertheless, it does have some nice touches. For example, the young woman goes to the town dance and an old couple see her and report back to her brother how scandalous it was. When her lover asks how long the old couple has been married, she says, oh no, they are brother and sister, which makes her situation with her own brother just as perilous. Over all, A Wind from the South is a melodrama about finding yourself that is certainly enjoyable to watch, but wraps itself in ethereal poetry, such as, a wind from the south carries the scent of freedom,  but in the end feels route.

Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History At Salon

~ bythefirelight ~ 1 Comment

Update: the NY Times has a glowing review of the book from MICHIKO KAKUTANI.

Salon has an interesting interview with British journalist and Times of London columnist David Aaronovitch about his  new book, “Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History. As conspiracy theories abound, thanks in part to the power of the Internet, it is good to see a book that addresses the topic and takes apart the theories. Not that the true believers will change their minds.

In recent years, people like the birthers and the 9/11 truthers have gotten a lot of press coverage and pop-cultural play. Are we in a new golden age of conspiracy theories?

I think we live in a more conspiracist period. There’s no question there are more of them, and they’re more global, and they take off more quickly. They’re also more complex and relate to virtual communities rather than real ones. I think it’s because of global interdependence. We live a global period, and there’s a huge temptation among people to believe there is a master plan, because otherwise the suggestion is we’re interdependent and the world is chaotic — and that’s a mindfuck.

There are entire societies where the default position is to believe in conspiracy theories, like in Pakistan or Iran. There are very few people in the Pakistan military, for example, who don’t believe that Bush was behind 9/11. But they’re also probably more easily dispelled, especially in places like the U.S. or Britain. Maybe I’m a false optimist, but I think we have a good skeptics’ movement. My book has done quite well in the U.K. I do think there is some appetite amongst the skeptics that we’ve had enough of this shit and it’s time to fight back.