Interviews/Features on authors (Thread #5)

Famous authors and the outlines for their work:

http://flavorwire.com/391173/famous-authors-handwritten-outlines-for-great-works...

Everything from Harlot's Ghost to Faulkner to Harry Potter

Dan Brown given the treatment by Jim Crace:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2013/may/19/inferno-dan-brown-digested-read

(Thanks, Gord)

Bashing the classics:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/canon-fodder-denouncing-the-...

(Thanks, Gord)

3: Anthony Burgess vented his disgust with “Les Misérables” (“Are you unaware of the dullness, the irrelevancies, the preaching, the sentimentality, the improbabilities, the melodrama?”)

Cue predictable Atlas Shrugged joke.

The creosote at the bottom of the barrel:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22630814

When fan fiction assholes start being treated like REAL authors you know we're spiraling toward the abyss. To paraphrase the great Bill Hicks: "Any writers of fan fiction out there? Kill yourselves. Seriously. I'm not joking. Do it..."

(Apologies for the Windows 8 ad which precedes the piece.)

5: Great now aspiring indie writers have to compete against this derivative schlock. Then again, there are enough sources on the Interwebs for people to get fanfiction for free. So we'll see what happens. Why buy milk when you have the cow, or some such agri-nostalgic bon mot.

Call me cynical, but I don't see these fanfictioneers selling in any quantity to justify any apocalyptic hysteria:

http://www.lindsayburoker.com/book-marketing/reasons-youre-not-selling-many-eboo...

Why get excited? They're not treating fan fiction like serious fiction. They're just finding a way to make money off it.

I wonder about that. I have no problem with people writing "fan fiction" based on my work---but when they start monetizing their efforts, making loot based on characters and worlds I created, I'm going to fucking MURDER them, sue them for their first born, reduce them to penury, hack off their big toes and make them dance an Irish jig.

Gotta protect copyright, doncha know.

But in this case, the fan fiction is licensed. The people who created the characters are being paid.

And the Amazon deal is restricted to three franchises.

Genuine fan fiction (which, where sold in hardcopy, only covers the cost of consumables) carries disclaimers that acknowledge the rights of the creators/copyright holders. Media fans and show promoters have come to an accommodation over this with the passage of time, and indeed some shows have developed a symbiotic relationship with some of their more talented fans. A number of them have gone into screenwriting (rather than writing fiction).

The Amazon deal is probably a bad thing because it suggests that fan fiction could be written for profit rather than love.

Fan fiction--what a bunch of assholes. Would love to have one of these twits come up to me and introduce themselves as a "fellow author" or something of that ilk. The resulting explosion would make Alamogordo look like a firecracker.

"Kill yourselves. Seriously..."

11: Why would they bother introducing themselves to you when they would be too busy counting their money and driving their Maseratis around town?

I'm going to start worrying myself to death about this as soon as I have any fans.

> 11: The intelligent fan fiction writers know their limitations. Most do what they do merely for the love of it, and would acknowledge you, Cliff, as "a real author". There are muppets, of course, who think that a few photocopied novelettes or some short stories online make them into authors; but they aren't restricted to writers of fan fiction, alas.

Some fan fiction authors have gone on to become 'proper' authors. But the bulk of them have had to graft at the art the same as everyone else. Most of those who make it will have done so on merit and have as many rejection slips as anyone else.

Surely, Robert, "intelligent fan fiction writers" is an oxymoron. I give them NO credit, NO respect. Any of those fuckers even pretend to be on the same level as real writers and I'll gobble them up like small, stupid mice.

They are limpets, eagerly licking the leavings off giants. Bottom feeders, shit eaters.

Unworthy of recognition, despised and vilified by those who love the printed word.

I can see it's time for the First Annual LitSnobs Cliff Burns Fan Fiction Contest.

Bring it on...

The thing is, Cliff, that Sturgeon's Law ("90% of everything is crap") applies in fan fiction as in everything else; and when so much of it is churned out, the good 10% hardly gets noticed. Moreover, one of the hallmarks of the truest of true fans (of anything) is that their critical bar is set very low, so the 10% goes without acclaim even from their peers.

I'm afraid when it comes to fan fic, "Sturgeon's Law" is far too optimistic.

Well, Sturgeon's Law applies to Sturgeon's Law.

Yes, indeed.

My interview with Arthur J. Magida, author of the Nazi Seance:

http://driftlessareareview.com/2013/06/05/the-arthur-j-magida-interview/

Excellent interview, Karl.

Great book title too.

I like Magida's linking of Hanussen and Hitler as deceivers, each in their own spheres of operation.

The most credible explanations of Hitler and the Nazi phenomenon, or at least the ones that have stayed with me, have been those mentioned almost in passing in works read recently by Philip K Dick and W G Sebald.

Kevin Bohane nabs a big literary prize:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-22795515

(Just added this one to my inter-library loan list.)

23: One shouldn't forget the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer. While current historical research has debunked certain assertions he had -- the controversial Luther Hypothesis -- it should be appreciated as a historical account written by someone who witnessed and reported the rise of Hitler. The Long Night by Steve Wick is a page-turner that is an account of Shirer's war years in Germany.

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/06/w-g-sebalds-apocalyptic-vision-world...

W G Sebald and the end of the world.

25 yes, Shirer's account is the best I've read in terms of historical accuracy. I was thinking more of a satisfactory metaphysical explanation.....

Excellent piece on Sebald--and there was a good one on Orwell along the sidebar too:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2013/05/orwell-wars

As aside-bar to Cliff's well-found fury over fan-fiction, I would opine that if such persons (and their spiritual kin) were to disappear from LT today, it would leave a subscriber base of fifty -- hardly worth Tim Spaulding's while to pay expenses. My numbers may be a little pessimistic, but y'all know what I'm talking-about. -- GCG

You might have a point there, Harry.

Then again, there are over 700 people in this group who are proud to identify themselves as snobs. I would say the ratio of fan fiction writers or fellow travelers is slimmer here than in most places on LT.

30: With all those fellow travelers, would that make Cliff and Ian the Lenin and Trotsky of this group? Or the Chico and Groucho?

I think that Goodreads is more fan-fictiony than LT. LT is a lot more cataloguey, librarianish, and adjective-inventy.

GR is filled with inane groups where people chat about fan fiction.

If we were to eradicate the fanfic fans, LT would have at least 100 subscribers, and GR would evaporate entirely.

Truth is, fan fiction is generally pretty harmless. It's not putting anyone in publishing out of a job.

Are people really comparing fan-fiction to 'real' books? Things that people too limited to imagine their own worlds and characters write?
And they're supposed to be evaluated on a par with normal books?

The world just became slightly poorer :(

David McFadden wins Griffin Poetry Award:

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/story/2013/06/13/canada-griffin-poetry-prize-winners...

(My pal Gord says McFadden's a fine fellow, nice man.)

The Amazon page for Bleeding Edge by one Thomas Ruggles Pynchon:

http://www.amazon.com/Bleeding-Edge-Thomas-Pynchon/dp/1594204233

Here's the summary:

It is 2001 in New York City, in the lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11th. Silicon Alley is a ghost town, Web 1.0 is having adolescent angst, Google has yet to IPO, Microsoft is still considered the Evil Empire. There may not be quite as much money around as there was at the height of the tech bubble, but there’s no shortage of swindlers looking to grab a piece of what’s left.

Maxine Tarnow is running a nice little fraud investigation business on the Upper West Side, chasing down different kinds of small-scale con artists. She used to be legally certified but her license got pulled a while back, which has actually turned out to be a blessing because now she can follow her own code of ethics—carry a Beretta, do business with sleazebags, hack into people’s bank accounts—without having too much guilt about any of it. Otherwise, just your average working mom—two boys in elementary school, an off-and-on situation with her sort of semi-ex-husband Horst, life as normal as it ever gets in the neighborhood—till Maxine starts looking into the finances of a computer-security firm and its billionaire geek CEO, whereupon things begin rapidly to jam onto the subway and head downtown. She soon finds herself mixed up with a drug runner in an art deco motorboat, a professional nose obsessed with Hitler’s aftershave, a neoliberal enforcer with footwear issues, plus elements of the Russian mob and various bloggers, hackers, code monkeys, and entrepreneurs, some of whom begin to show up mysteriously dead. Foul play, of course.

With occasional excursions into the DeepWeb and out to Long Island, Thomas Pynchon, channeling his inner Jewish mother, brings us a historical romance of New York in the early days of the internet, not that distant in calendar time but galactically remote from where we’ve journeyed to since.

Will perpetrators be revealed, forget about brought to justice? Will Maxine have to take the handgun out of her purse? Will she and Horst get back together? Will Jerry Seinfeld make an unscheduled guest appearance? Will accounts secular and karmic be brought into balance?

Hey. Who wants to know?

September 17th release date.

Mark it on your calendar, kids.

Daniil Kharms:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/Saunders-t.html?pagewanted=all&am...

Why have I never heard of this guy before?

And there's a play based on one of his works:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-23143063

Susan Sontag--smart gal:

http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/07/25/susan-sontag-on-writing/

6 Authors who were nothing like you expect:

http://www.cracked.com/article_20530_6-famous-authors-who-were-nothing-like-you-...

Julio Cortazar in THE PARIS REVIEW:

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2955/the-art-of-fiction-no-83-julio-cor...

Bless the man...

Kafka:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/books/review/kafka-the-years-of-insight-by-rei...

(Cheers, Gord)

The great George Saunders gives a graduation speech where he covers the essentials:

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/31/george-saunderss-advice-to-graduate...;

(From Gord)

Interview with maybe my favorite author in the world, James Crumley:

http://crimespreemag.com/flashback-laura-lippman-interviews-james-crumley/

(Cheers, Gord.)

Author Jeffrey Deaver at the top of his game!

http://www.theonion.com/articles/breaking-thriller-writer-jeffery-deaver-at-top-...

William T. Vollman reacts to his ludicrous, 700 and some page long FBI file:

http://harpers.org/archive/2013/09/life-as-a-terrorist/

45: "I can't believe it was so short!"

7 Misconceptions about the Science Fiction Publishing Industry:

http://io9.com/the-7-most-common-misconceptions-about-science-fiction-1189361443

You know, having read Vollmann, I have to think it fits. He is right on the edge of crazy.

47: I think he built one of those mountainside houses held up by stilts right on the edge of crazy. He seems to live there.

His stilt house is cantilevered out over the edge of crazy so that he can sit out on the deck with a beer and peer into the abyss.

But if the FBI had slogged through Rising Up, Rising Down they would have discarded him as a suspect.

49: True. I can't imagine a G-man slogging through those seven volumes. But Vollmann did voice his admiration for anti-government wackadoo Bo Gritz and was really non-judgmental of anything Afghanistan men do in the RURD section on honor.

A short piece on Gordon Lish ... you know, the guy who edited Carver:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2013/aug/29/gordon-lish-80-raymond-ca...

A snobworthy figure in his own right, whom few have read.

51: I've read him ... but I haven't gotten around to reading Faust yet. I read Lish's novel Peru An acquired taste to be sure.

Borges as professor of English literature:

http://therumpus.net/2013/08/professor-borges-reviewed-by-will-glovinsky/

Jonathan Lethem on Tommy Pynchon:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/15/books/review/bleeding-edge-by-thomas-pynchon.h...;

Another in-depth piece on Pynchon...as I await the arrival of BLEEDING EDGE:

http://www.vulture.com/2013/08/thomas-pynchon-bleeding-edge.html

Jonathan Franzen on the power and ubiquity of technology:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/13/jonathan-franzen-wrong-modern-world

My favorite paragraph:

In my own little corner of the world, which is to say American fiction, Jeff Bezos of Amazon may not be the antichrist, but he surely looks like one of the four horsemen. Amazon wants a world in which books are either self-published or published by Amazon itself, with readers dependent on Amazon reviews in choosing books, and with authors responsible for their own promotion. The work of yakkers and tweeters and braggers, and of people with the money to pay somebody to churn out hundreds of five-star reviews for them, will flourish in that world. But what happens to the people who became writers because yakking and tweeting and bragging felt to them like intolerably shallow forms of social engagement? What happens to the people who want to communicate in depth, individual to individual, in the quiet and permanence of the printed word, and who were shaped by their love of writers who wrote when publication still assured some kind of quality control and literary reputations were more than a matter of self-promotional decibel levels? As fewer and fewer readers are able to find their way, amid all the noise and disappointing books and phony reviews, to the work produced by the new generation of this kind of writer, Amazon is well on its way to making writers into the kind of prospectless workers whom its contractors employ in its warehouses, labouring harder for less and less, with no job security, because the warehouses are situated in places where they're the only business hiring. And the more of the population that lives like those workers, the greater the downward pressure on book prices and the greater the squeeze on conventional booksellers, because when you're not making much money you want your entertainment for free, and when your life is hard you want instant gratification ("Overnight free shipping!").

56: I know you realize the irony of posting that on an Internet discussion board. (Reminds me of when Sideshow Bob decried the evils of television ... on a Jumbotron.)

David Gilmour on teaching and "serious heterosexual guys":

http://www.randomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/david-gilmour-building-strong-stomachs

Famous writers and their obvious flaws:

http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-famous-writers-with-flaws-everyone-tries-to-ignore...

#58 Harry: I wonder if there would've been the same hullaballoo if the visiting lecturer in question was a women and confessed to reading and championing only female authors (or "minority" authors or whatever).

Just a thought...

That and, y'know, a quick mench of that whole freedom of expression thing we Canucks like to pay lip service to...

60: I wonder if there would've been the same hullaballoo if the visiting lecturer in question was a women and confessed to reading and championing only female authors (or "minority" authors or whatever).

What's wrong with a little promotional self-interest? Indie authors do that all the time. When one is member of a minority group (without condescending air-quotes), one will do whatever it takes to preserve oneself from harassment and persecution from the majority populace. Although nobody plays the victim better than the heterosexual white male monotheist. Nobody ever seems to cut them a break:

Louis CK has some thoughts on the matter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG4f9zR5yzY

My pal Gord sends me this gem, from a recent review:

"Malcolm Gladwell revisits his well of counterintuitive factoids with diminished results."

David Bowie's favorite books:
http://www.openculture.com/2013/10/david-bowies-list-of-top-100-books.html

T.C. Boyle, reflecting:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/t-coraghessan-boyle-apologia...

(Thanks, Gord)

4 famous people who have no clue how to handle criticism:

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/4-famous-people-who-have-no-clue-how-to-handl...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-24383000

One...two...three (all at once):

"HACK!"

Ah, dinosaur erotica, I'm so glad I live in the 21st century:

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/10-real-book-covers-from-dinosaur-on-human-se...

1st interview with Alice Munro, after her Nobel win:

http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/World/ID/2411484788/

Thank God they gave it to her and not Maggie Atwood. Ol' Maggie would've been insufferable--one of the truly annoying and arrogant people on the Canadian literary scene.

Susan Sontag on W.G. Sebald

http://biblioklept.org/2013/10/04/susan-sontag-on-w-g-sebald/

Now THERE'S a smart duo.

Irvine Welsh, happy to be alive:

http://www.vice.com/read/irvine-welsh-doesnt-regret-choosing-life

BBC documentary on Camus:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03g2r5j

Celebrating A.C.'s 100th this year.

November is considered a good month for tackling those heavyweights still lurking on the shelf.

http://flavorwire.com/423424/50-incredibly-tough-books-for-extreme-readers/view-...

Pumping mental iron.

We should all be reading more "difficult" books.

It's good for us...

74: And not read them in translation either. That's for philistine scum and wannabe hipster trash. Now where'd I put that Being and Time?

GOLIATH: LIFE AND LOATHING IN GREATER ISRAEL--this one's going to light a few fires.

Chris Hedges writes about it here:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/imploding_the_myth_of_israel_20131103

Hmmm. Think I'll add it to my inter-library loan list.

Speaking of heavyweights (see: #74), how about a little William Vollmann:

http://www.newsweek.com/lush-life-william-t-vollmann-2746

This just in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25038339

Good piece on the resurgence of Karl Kraus:

http://www.thepointmag.com/2013/essays/haters

(Cheers, Gord)

79: I highly recommend The Kraus Project, albeit as someone who absolutely detested Franzen's long-winded navel-gazing-as-footnotes that completely disrupted the flow and rhythm of Kraus's original essays.

79: Ooooh, I really liked that article.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2013_12/in_praise_of_vicious...

An article about negative reviews with links to some of the author's favorites.

Gord should run some kind of on-line clipping service. The stuff he digs up and sends my way is always top-drawer material.

He used to own the best indie bookstore I've ever frequented--smart, funny man.

83: I heard these things called "blogs" can really do the trick with that. Some even let you start your own for free.

Best short story collections of the year:

http://flavorwire.com/428922/the-10-best-short-story-collections-of-2013/

Malcolm Cowley--editor and critic (back when those weren't devalued labels):

http://www.bookforum.com/inprint/2004/12465

(Thanks, Gord)

Elmore Leonard, retrospectively:

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/01/the-elmore-leonard-paradox/3...

Can you say...over-rated?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25526847

A mildly entertaining young adult novel. Not much more than that, I'm afraid. The p.o.v. of the protagonist is completely unbelievable.

God, people are dumb.

88: I haven't read it yet so can't really comment, but it has to be better than last year's winner, which wasn't even a book, just plain trash.
Oh the power of the people *roll eyes*

Gord found this, looks like a biography to keep an eye on:

http://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/a-true-picture-of-picasso-1.1642473

The review is written by John Banville.

Another one from Gord, Sara Maitland writing about the appeal of solitude and isolation:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jan/11/why-society-problem-being-alone

Give it up for Nathan Filer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25936187

An interview with our lad Ian Sales:

http://sentidodelamaravilla.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/interview-with-ian-sales.html

Will Self on William Burroughs:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/01/william-burroughs-junky-will-self

(Another great find from Gord)

More on William Burroughs:

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20140204-they-knew-the-godfather-of-punk

(It's the Burroughs centenary this year.)

Speaking of which:

http://www.burroughs100.com/

Raise a glass in honor of ol' Bill tonight!

THE BIG SLEEP was published 75 years ago this week:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2014/feb/06/raymond-chandler-new-form...

(Thanks, Gord)

this has to be the year I read Chandler. Last year was my Hammett year.

Hilarious--marginalia in Dan Brown's INFERNO.

http://www.themillions.com/2014/01/dumbest-thing-ever-scribbling-in-the-margins-...

(Cheers, Gord)

Writing on the train:

http://www.thewire.com/culture/2014/02/inside-amtraks-absolutely-awesome-plan-gi...

One of Will Self's "rules for writing":

#10 Regard yourself as a small corporation of one. Take yourself off on team-building exercises (long walks). Hold a Christmas party every year at which you stand in the corner of your writing room, shouting very loudly to yourself while drinking a bottle of white wine. Then masturbate under the desk. The following day you will feel a deep and cohering sense of embarrassment.

Brilliant!

George Saunders deservedly wins a writing award:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/10/george-saunders-tenth-of-december-f...

Kurt Vonnegut reads SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE:

http://www.openculture.com/2014/03/hear-kurt-vonnegut-read-his-masterpiece-slaug...

(Thanks, Gord)

Will Self on Guy DeBord's SOCIETY OF THE SPECTACLE:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/nov/14/guy-debord-society-spectacle-will-s...

Donna Tartt won this year's Pulitzer for THE GOLDFINCH.

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27032533

This just from my wife: "She's over-rated".

Tough gal, my wife.

Then there was the story from the bookshop assistant: "Have you got 'The Little Tartt' by Donna Friend?"

Shakespeare's dictionary?

http://endlessbookshelf.net/beehive.html

Some lines in honour of Shakespeare's 450th birthday:

"Immortal! William Shakespeare! The truth is plain to tell.
You have drawn out your characters remarkably well."
(William McGonagall)

High praise from the greatest of poets....

109: As a Dundonian I applaud your critical judgment.

From VANITY FAIR, Rushdie, Amis & McEwan recalling the furore that greeted THE SATANIC VERSES:

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2014/05/salman-rushdie-ian-mcwean-martin-amis-...

Gord sent me this good article on Ralph Steadman, Hunter Thompson's old crony:

http://boingboing.net/2014/05/08/the-art-of-ralph-steadmans.html

Larry McMurtry's new novel sounds like a beaut:

http://www.avclub.com/review/larry-mcmurtrys-latest-reimagines-legends-old-west-...

In celebration of spring, great novels featuring sports:

http://fivebooks.com/interviews/harbach-on-novels-sporting-themes

The Tom Wolfe archive (courtesy Gord):

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/21/books/combing-through-the-public-librarys-tom-...

Eimear McBride wins Bailey's Prize over favorite Donna Tartt:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27695363

Love this quote from her acceptance speech:

"There is a contract between publisher and reader that needs to be honoured and a reader must not be underestimated."

Amen to that--she's one smart lass.

Clive James on mortality:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-27586907

Chris Hedges, plagiarist.

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118114/chris-hedges-pulitzer-winner-lefty-her...

(Cliff will not be amused....)

>118 ajsomerset: Perhaps he will not, but *I* certainly was. I am sadly unsurprised.

Very, very disappointed. And unamused.

118: I find Hedges sloppy -- the word "corporate" being used as an all-purpose condemnation, for example -- and dishonest. An example of the latter, false statements about the 1921 West Virginia Mine War in a piece on gun control for The Walrus. He gets away with things like that because almost nobody is familiar with the events of the West Virginia Mine War.

Plagiarism witch hunts always bother me, because plagiarism isn't as cut and dried as people pretend -- witness the recent flap over the revelation that Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1 is a pastiche. People apply academic standards to non-academic work, where citations are omitted for the sake of readability, or they confuse the rules applied to undergraduate essays with the rules applied in the real world, as if every piece of writing is some kind of test to be evaluated. That said, the lift from Hemingway, and the way Hedges reacted to its discovery, is damning.

My rule is, never trust a polemicist.

Idols with feet of clay and all that.

Hedges' p.o.v. and political slant is very, very close to my own and perhaps that's why I feel so annoyed and betrayed by his stupidity. As a writer, I take plagiarism very, very seriously; any quote or source should have proper attribution. There was a line in the last Neil Gaiman novel that he lifted directly from Sylvia Plath's journals and treated like his own--yet another reason for my utter lack of respect for the man. Plagiarism that is inadvertent and immediately addressed is one thing but Mr. Hedges transgressions were numerous and his attitude, once caught, was dishonorable.

I will allow for a wee bit of sloppy journalism, in the name of passion and hyperbole...but sloppy ethics is something else.

"As a writer, I take plagiarism very, very seriously; any quote or source should have proper attribution."

Really? Lifting lines from well known works is fairly common and doesn't imply deception. A literate reader ought to recognize them. And pastiche takes skill; it's not a matter of cheap theft. This is why I dislike these absolute statements re plagiarism.

I agree it can be a complex issue--I think of how W.G. Sebald weaves unattributed passages throughout his strange books...and I LOVE Sebald.

But when a writer (especially a journalist) is caught in a situation where he/she has, even inadvertently, burgled a line or passage from another scribe, the reaction should be a certain amount of chagrin and contrition. "Made a mistake, sorry, I'll be triply careful with my sources and footnotes next time". Hedges and his supporters tried to minimize his sins of omission and, I think, made the situation worse. A sincere, genuine mea culpa would've been infinitely more honest...and classy.

Durrell was also accused of plagiarism - especially in Caesar's Vast Ghost.

T.S. Eliot and Groucho Marx were penpals:

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2014/06/the-fraught-friendship-of-t-...

(Cheers, Gord)

On Boccaccio's THE DECAMERON:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/11/11/131111crbo_books_acocella...

(Gord strikes again)

Norman Mailer, writing on the Moon landing:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/may/24/norman-mailer-fire-moon-book-landin...

Can't remember if this has been previously posted. Tim Parks opining that we no longer have the time or concentration to take on "difficult" reads:

http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/jun/10/reading-struggle/

The books of 2014 (so far)--ones to watch for & dark horses:

http://www.avclub.com/article/pages-most-likely-succeed-our-favorite-books-2014-...

Man Booker Prize longlist released:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/23/man-booker-prize-2014-longlist-reve...

Thoughts?

Gord's found us a good piece on the fascinating William T. Vollmann. This guy is a writing MACHINE:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118748/william-t-vollmanns-dangerously-uncorr...

The CATCH 22 of World War I:

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/118744/gabriel-chevalliers-rediscovered-world...

For a cool half-million, you can buy John Cheever's old digs:

http://www.newsweek.com/john-cheevers-ossining-house-sale-261532

A mere £139.5m (yes, that is pounds) cheaper than this (Sorry about the Daily Mail link. Remember to wash your brains out after visiting this site).

Ah, let the tumbrils roll again.

It's long overdue.

Siegfried Sassoon's war diaries are now available for reading on-line:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-28581726

Jim Harrison in Esquire, in the briefest snippets.

http://www.esquire.com/features/what-ive-learned/jim-harrison-interview-0814

Gord strikes again!

Mark Dery writes of William Burroughs' lifelong aversion to...centipedes:

http://boingboing.net/2014/08/05/william-s-burroughs-and-the-d.html

Good article on the correspondence of L.F. Celine:

http://www.brooklynrail.org/2014/06/fiction/correspondence-of-louis-ferdinand-ce...

Marty Amis, still capable of stirring up trouble:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/15/love-to-hate-martin-amis

Michael Palin, featured in the GUARDIAN:

http://www.theguardian.com/culture/2014/sep/06/michael-palin-world-is-absurd-sil...

(From that Gord guy.)

This year's Booker Prize nominations:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29123941

Wow, a million word novel:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/10/alan-moore-finishes-million-word-no...

I'll put good money on the table and bet you 999,500 of those words are tuneless, superfluous or inept.

>144 CliffBurns: - back in the olden days I remember reading Alan Moore's stuff in Warrior - V for Vendetta & Miracleman (in glorious B&W, before US publishers ruined the art by introducing colour) - and then Swamp Thing. As comic writers go he was probably was the best but even then there were hints that he couldn't shut up and that the artwork was actually an irritation that got in the way. (There were stories that he used send the arts detailed breakdowns of what should be every panel). This novel just seems like the natural culmination of his verbosity - for himself and his few remaining fanboys who will declare it the greatest novel ever written and who will end up fighting Neil Gaiman fans who claim that title for American Gods.
To be fair to Moore, at least he is a genuine eccentric and thereby is performing a vital role in English society. Gaiman, on the other hand, is just annoying.

>141 CliffBurns: - I saw Amis talking about his new book at the Edinburgh Book Festival. There is something sad about Amis - he was once the superstar of English Lit but for more than twenty years now has looked like a writer in search of his real subject. He tackles big subjects because he wants to taken seriously despite his style being better suited to other material.

An Amis-like writer is sent up in Mitchell's THE BONE CLOCKS.

It's hard to live up to your ego, when the inspiration ran out years ago. I think you're right, he'd like to be known for "important" books, when right now he (Amis) should just be shooting for concocting a good, readable book.

As for Moore and Gaiman...well, people know what I think about comic book writers. But if you wanna read time-wasters instead of genuine literature, hey, be my guest. Just don't pretend they're one and the same thing.

Interview with the aforementioned David Mitchell:

http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/feature/bumping-your-memories-interview-dav...

(From Gord.)

Naomi Klein, interviewed by Democracy Now:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W3scqbuJVQ&index=2&list=PL50BDB9BCCFAF0...

NEW YORK TIMES feature on the strange and elusive Donald Antrim:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/21/magazine/donald-antrim-and-the-art-of-anxiety....

(From Gord)

An interview with mystery writer James Ellroy (always an adventure):

http://video.pbs.org/video/2365330949/

Patrick Modiano, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature...any fans here?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/arts/nobel-prize-in-literature-won-by-french-writer-patri...

Flanagan wins the Booker:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-29617292

The NEW ANNOTATED H.P. LOVECRAFT:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0871404532/downandoutint-20

Mark Dery interviews Mikita Brottman:

http://boingboing.net/2014/10/16/the-bookshelf-of-a-homicide-en.html

(The links in the article are fun and well worth checking out.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqnqHsPICF8

John Lanchester

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C95Yb2A27BY
Norman Davies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIwtBaBelKM
Pat Conroy
Not really an interview. It's clips of movies made from novels written by Pat Conroy.

Here is one that is an actual interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVFNTi8U_Oc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaxFbNgskOw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM1TrEYOaNc

Joyce Carol Oates

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHNq4t6NDII
Jeffrey Archer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vv5YuebJduA
interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpR2LUuzbzw
(review)
Nicholson Baker

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZyZ1Io4vEg
Alan Dershowitz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_iTh0QzeMg
Charlie LeDuff
Detroit: An American Autopsy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3LOO9tXCvs
Alberto Manguel reading in French an excerpt of one of his books.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8zyK3DtXxQ
A lecture

Is Stephen King a "great" writer, a la Dickens?

http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20141031-is-stephen-king-a-great-writer

NO.

Since the mid-1980s he's been on a run of mediocrity that is almost unmatched by any other major author of his era. Anyone who attempted to get through UNDER THE DOME has a pretty unequivocal response to the notion of King's alleged "genius":

"You're kidding, right?"

William Burroughs and his influence on contemporary neurology:

http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/26/william-burroughs-drugs-cure-insp...

(Thanks, Gord)

John Gray, on the moral universe of H.P. Lovecraft:

http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/10/weird-realism-john-gray-moral-univer...

(From that Gord fella.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M6x8eX5hZo
Timothy Findley and Jane Rule

Ah, always a pleasure to see Tiff again...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ceBPC6_3aqY
Anya Ulinich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzRZvF9fXAQ
Anne Fadiman, author of Ex Libris and The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vhRqP56yU8
Bill Bryson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8R5WILUZ8dI
Hunter S. Thompson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MrViWcHQdxc
Margaret Drabble talking about A Writer's Britain
I am not sure what this style of editing of raw footage of interviewers would be called, but I noticed in many clips on Youtube, the interviewer's questions are excised, and what the question was is self-evident from the interviewee's response to it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m47A0AmqxQE
Iris Murdoch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Z6tw4MdJs
Mark Edmundson

http://www.cbc.ca/player/Radio/Writers+and+Company/ID/2578886403/
Tim Winton, author of Eyrie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8LZy2v3O1w
Aldous Huxley interviewed by Mike Wallace

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXLC0v0Ah7U
Kazuo Ishiguro

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7LjriWFAEs
Ian McEwan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzLWXJrFkBM
Janette Turner Hospital

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3h2tqA3uaM
Tibor Fischer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnXzTAPSNfE
John Irving

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxyibER3_L0
Sarah Dunant

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NvcvdC2d0So
Barbara Ehrenreich

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3w8vzpQ1ws
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7XVM_7iOjc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2OLpRoanUu0&list=PL9AB694BF751CFAEB
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NkXDbrYrSXs&list=PL9AB694BF751CFAEB&index...

Donna Leon

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ySsCiQoRFE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1Xq8z6jRIE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1c3zlaI9GAo
Colleen McCullough

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-G9e2TT-TM
Howard Jacobson about Shakespeare and mention of The Finkler Question and Whatever It Is, I Don't Like It

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLlYVszUMpM
William Gass about The Tunnel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UJSY9ACFIY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hfi94ItVA

Margaret Atwood talking about The Year of the Flood

Fascinating.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InSd-m4Qmnk
Isaac Bashevis Singer and Anthony Burgess
Anthony Burgess converses with Isaac Bashevis Singer. Sveriges Television, 24th September 1985

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ0GAA-NeeM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SA2-R7r4Lc
Gary Shteyngart

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-wITHYusRk
Nathaniel Philbrick, author of Why Read Moby-Dick being interviewed on topic of Moby-Dick and Herman Melville

Fantastic award speech by Ursula Le Guin:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Et9Nf-rsALk

(From Gord)

Yep, that was a brilliant speech.

And what a delivery!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8m9vDRe8fw
Feuding is right.
Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Dick Cavett and Janet Flanner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIIGeSXawCY
Michael Ignatieff discussing True Patriot Love, which I have not read.
One book of his that I have read and loved is Isaiah Berlin, a Life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4iE_IqB7l0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c1hHc-ZecM
Paul Theroux
A Dead Hand A Mystery in Calcutta

Peek at John Cleese's new memoir:

http://www.popmatters.com/feature/188325-an-excerpt-from-so-anyway/

John Cleese and Eric Idle, in conversation (from 2 weeks ago):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnpY46lOTX4

Courtesy Gord.

Sharp piece on Wally Benjamin, Adorno, et al:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/09/15/naysayers

From Gord, natch.

For those of us who love a good western novel:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/books/review/robert-bauschs-far-as-the-eye-can...

Will Self, interviewed in Boing Boing:

http://boingboing.net/2015/01/21/self-dissection-a-conversatio.html

Not a writer for all tastes but no one could accuse him of being dumb...

(Thanks for this, Gord)

Lovely piece on recently deceased poet, Mark Strand:

http://www.brainpickings.org/2015/01/28/mark-strand-creativity/

Uh, oh...Harper Lee publishing stuff out of her bottom drawer:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-31118355

A "pretty decent novel"?

Honey, when you've written an American masterpiece, why seek to damage your literary legacy?

My thoughts exactly. Surely she doesn't need the money.

Another great find from Gord--Algernon Blackwood's Canadian connection:

http://torontoist.com/2015/01/historicist-learning-the-writers-craft/

An absolutely fascinating article on literary hack Andrew Offutt (who proudly boasted he could write a book a month):

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/magazine/my-dad-the-pornographer.html?_r=0

(We can thank Gord for this one as well.)

Iggy Pop narrates radio doc on William Burroughs:

http://disinfo.com/2015/02/iggy-pop-narrates-radio-documentary-william-s-burroug...

Iain Banks' prose poems:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/feb/14/iain-banks-prose-poems-ken-macleod

My copy of that book arrived today.

Make sure you post your review here.

In conversation with "America's greatest novelist":

http://booth.butler.edu/2015/02/13/a-conversation-with-jonathan-franzen/

Gord highlighted this quote for special mention:

"Most of what people read, if you go to the book shelf in the airport convenience store and look at what's there, even if it doesn't have a YA on the spine, is YA in its moral simplicity. People don’t want moral complexity. Moral complexity is a luxury. You might be forced to read it in school, but a lot of people have hard lives. They come home at the end of the day, they feel they’ve been jerked around by the world yet again for another day. The last thing they want to do is read Alice Munro, who is always pointing toward the possibility that you’re not the heroic figure you think of yourself as, that you might be the very dubious figure that other people think of you as. That’s the last thing you’d want if you’ve had a hard day. You want to be told good people are good, bad people are bad, and love conquers all. And love is more important than money. You know, all these schmaltzy tropes. That’s exactly what you want if you’re having a hard life. Who am I to tell people that they need to have their noses rubbed in moral complexity?"

I saw an interview many years ago with Aaron Spelling where he espoused the same philosophy. He was addressing criticism towards some of the programs he had created as being low brow. He basically said people work hard all day at thankless jobs and when they get home at night they want to forget about that and get lost in a television show that doesn't have all those difficulties and can help them forget their troubles.

It explains the on-going appeal of escapist entertainment and shitty comic book movies.

But the problem is that in the corporate era, that kind of crap is proliferating like never before and the professions of writer, film director, artist, have been devalued by rampant amateurism, technologies that allow anyone to publish a book or gain their fifteen minutes of fame on YouTube.

The democratization of technology hasn't led to a flood of genius...it's inspired eight billion "funny cat" videos.

Ain't that sad?

Depends on how amusing the cat is. ;-)

I am proud to say there is room in my life for morally complex fiction AND cat videos.

I don't know about moral complexity in my reading but I find all those time sucking 'funny' animal videos annoying and pointless.

There may just be a market for morally complex cat videos, in which the cat comes to realize that perhaps he's not a heroic figure but just a stupid animal with a pancake on his head.

Sometimes I sense the people in this group are too clever for their own good.

218: The "Henri, the existential cat" videos get closer to the "morally complex" line than most other cat videos, although I realize this is quite a low bar.

New Philip Kerr novel out in April:

http://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/ref=pe_839050_133858830_pe_hero/?ASIN=0399167641

I think every Philip Kerr novel that I have read lasted me about 1 1/2 days maximum, because it was a very suspenseful book. I gobble them up. ... or down, not sure which. Since I'm such a cheapskate, I usually wait until they go on sale for $6.99 or $7.99 on the remainder tables at Chapters (Canada) in hardcover.

Kerr is one of the few authors I can read for pleasure...and not feel that my intelligence is being insulted.

This year's Nobel Prize winner:

http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-34475251

And the Booker winner is:

http://www.cbc.ca/beta/arts/booker-prize-winner-1.3269106