On Saturday night I went to see my friend Lan’s incredible performance at Postcrypt. I gave a copy of this book to a friend to hold while I took a picture of Lan.

It’s unclear what happened next. All I know is that about an hour later, I was sitting in a car when I realized it was gone. I worried. Because, dense as it may be, Chaucerian Theatricality has a similar theoretical basis to my planned project. So it’s pretty important.

Maybe one minute after I spoke to my friend (she didn’t know where it was), I got the following text from an amazing person: “Are you perchance missing your copy of chaucerian theatricality? i swear i’m not a stalker. i read your blog and there’s a copy on the steps…”

And now I have it back! The book didn’t even have my name in it. I’m reading it right now. Thank you thank you thank you.

And heeeeere’s Lan:

Oh, and even though I have approximately 99999 other things to do, I started McEwan’s Between the Sheets. A short story collection is good for me at the moment—as a break from novels, and as I try to understand the form and craft. So far I’ve read the first two stories. They’re sort of Cement Gardenish. Otherwise they’re different from the McEwan novels I’ve read. (They’re also much better: less over-plotting).

Anyway, back to reading. Ganim.

Kate Langenburg/A&E Groove

Yesterday, I just so happened to finish a book that, I have to admit, really let me down. While combing the shelves for something interesting, I came across known author Ian McEwan. I’ve heard a lot about his works, and have read some of his short stories in various literature classes. Well, let’s give On Chesil Beach a go, then.

My very thought upon finishing the book: glad that’s over! It must be that McEwan tries to think up a new and hip kind of writing. It’s definitely a “different” kind of book. Let me give you the run down…

A couple that has just been married is eating dinner on their wedding night. They are about to consummate their marriage and the point of view skips from one to the other. The woman is insanely nervous because she absolutely abhors any act of intimacy and doesn’t think she’ll be able to have sex with her new husband. The man is excited and ready to finally, after all these years, take his woman into his arms and make love to her.

The time comes…she describes how turned off she is by any thought of sex (again) and he tries to charm her. Really, he ends up “arriving too soon” as they say (and all over her—and before he’s even inside her). She freaks out and runs out of the hotel into the night.

When he approaches her down by the beach afterwards, he is angry that she doesn’t want to make love to  him. She suggests that in order to make their marriage work, that he have relations with other women on the side to fulfill his sexual needs. She says that sex just isn’t something she wants or can handle. He is disgusted. They leave each other. 

Sooooo the baffling part about all this is why Ian McEwan needed 200 pages to tell that story. I mean, I just told it in a few paragraphs. I don’t think I’ve ever read something so long that has said so little before. Sure, some of his writing is a bit lovely, but on the whole, I wasn’t impressed. After reading reviews of this book by other people, I just don’t get it. They love it, they cry, they laugh, it’s incredible!

I will be staying far away from Chesil Beach.

A weekly meme.

Q: Do you think any current author is of the same caliber as Dickens, Austen, Bronte, or any of the classic authors? If so, who, and why do you think so? If not, why not? What books from this era might be read 100 years from now?

Thinking about posterity while sitting on my posterior. The simple answer to this weeks question is yes. I’m sure that there are people writing now that will be remembered for their work just as much as Dickens, Austen and the like. Isn’t it a bit silly to imagine that they are in some kind of untouchable bubble of brilliant-ness?

I feel certain that Ian McEwan will be remembered for his beautiful prose as well as stories that can carry you away, particularly Atonement and Enduring Love. Surely Alan Bennett will be remembered for his distinctively human and funny writing style and perhaps Peter Carey too. Those would be my guesses and I’m looking forward to seeing what other people think too.

Which authors do you think will be remembered in years to come?

After my previous post on a few things Book Group orientated and The Riverside Readers I said that I would come back with a post on my personal top Book Group reads as well as discussing my top Book Group tips. Those two things would actually make a bit of a Bible of a post and so I will do the top books today and a few tips and my own experiences for and of Book Groups on Thursday, so hopefully you are all still interested in all things Book Group related. Could I fit the words Book Groups in these previous sentences if I tried?

After seeing Novel Insights wonderful post on her personal top twelve books a group could read in a year I thought I would have a go. This isn’t plagiarism it’s simply joining in, ha. Having been in a few book groups (in fact I am currently in two though one is rather rogue and we only do one every so often when the whim takes us) I realised that I had a list of 38 books that I could choose from. Some of the books haven’t worked (Tales of the Jazz Age – we all had different editions which all featured a different selection of short stories), some have received indifference, some have been disliked and some have been loved, more on those in my list.

Though I haven’t featured the books that were indifferent or went wrong I have included one book which I didn’t care for but caused great discussion and that’s one thing I have noticed from book groups, I might not always like a book but that in itself when lots of people do can make for a great book group read as it causes debate. So what five things do I do in order to make a book group choice now, I may not have always done this in the past mind;

1. Books you wouldn’t normally read – one of the main points of a book group in my mind – but which are accessible, you don’t want to alienate your other group members.
2. Books which have been received with strong reviews/thoughts both positive and negative way when they came out, this could cause great debate.
3. Books that make you think and cause all sorts of discussions with yourself in your own head though you can’t always predict these in advance.
4. Authors you love and admire who other people might not have tried, though don’t be precious on these as they could get ripped to shreds.
5. Books that challenge and push you as a reader, if they are going to do this to you they probably will be to others.

Looking back at all the book groups I have been part of in the past which book would I recommend the most? Well after some whittling of the 38 I have read with book groups I came up with the final twelve (like Novel Insights I have chosen a years worth) that I think have caused the greatest discussion in no particular order.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
• The Bell – Iris Murdoch
• In Cold Blood – Truman Capote
• On Chesil Beach – Ian McEwan (close tie with Atonement to be honest)
• The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
• To Kill A Mockingbird – Harper Lee
• Half of a Yellow Sun – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
• Animal’s People – Indra Sinha
• Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck (the one I didn’t like – discussion was great)
• The Book of Dave – Will Self
• Kafka on the Shore – Hariku Murakami

So there it is. You can see the full list of all 38 books now on the “new and improved” Book Group page where you can also see what the next book group read is. You may be wondering why some of the above list are in bold. Well my Gran wants a list of five books, as I mentioned on a previous post, she could put forward for her book group. I am actually going to send her a list of new books she and her group are less likely to have read along with the five above in bold. More book group musings on Thursday when I will be discussing Book Group decorum and what made me sensationally (love the drama of that word) leave a book group I started after two years! Let me know what you think of the final twelve too can you spot any themes in them? Also please do tell me of any great books you have done in a book group in the past.

P.S Sorry no picture on today’s post I am not a big fan of posts with no images, if it drives me to crazy will be the shot of The Riverside Readers again!

New in at Cinema Books: Ian McEwan’s Atonement by Julie Ellam, $12.95 paper.  Remember the film Atonement 2007 ? This small volume delves into the life of the novelist, Ian McEwan, the novel itself and it’s initial reception. Also the adaption of the novel to film and the film’s reception.  An accessible introduction to one of the most acclaimed and influential novels of recent years.

Time for yet another episode of the ‘What Have I been reading’-lists I’ve been keeping. I use a little booklet for this, and I’m already dreading the day that the book is full. Most of it is written in pencil, so that I could erase it, but maybe I’ll just make a 900 pages long notebook myself, in which I meticulously keep listed what I’ve read in my life. My children, or my parents, my friends will find this list one day, thinking that I spent too much time reading and too little time living. But They don’t know that that’s just the same. By the way, no Amazon links this time, cause i think you all should start to buy at your independent or secondhand bookstores. Go for it guys.

David Eagleman – Sum

This is one of the best books I read this year, I think. Eagleman, a neuroscientist and writer, comes up with 40 short tales (microfiction it is called) about how the afterlife would be. Especially the first ones made me gasp for air, admiring the great train of thoughts Eagleman is taking in all these little stories. On his website you can read a few sample stories. They are not all as great, and I think I read the book in a too short time. You should be able to just read one story a week, so you’ll be amazed for forty weeks. I tried to keep it to 3 stories a day, but ended up finishing it faster than I could.

Richard Brautigan – The Abortion

A story from the sixties about a man who works in a library for unwanted books, hooks up with an unwanted writer, gets her pregnant, and they decide to have an abortion in Mexico. The plot is a perfect recipe for melodrama, but Brautigan, the hippie that he was, makes into this sweet love story. There is this lack of tension, which makes it a good in-between read, but I’m not sure if Brautigan will ever become my favorite sixties writer (he has to compete with people like Vonnegut and Tom Robbins)

Paul Auster – Timbuktu

I’m a big Auster fan, and this was one of the few books i hadn’t read yet, but it quite disappointed me. I love the beginning, when Mr. Bones is still around his excentric boss, Willy Christmas, whose job it is to spread the merry Christmas thought, after Santa Claus himself told him too. I loved the hobo monologues. But then Willy Christmas disappears from the story, and you get this tale of a dog looking for a new home. It was just too much a disney story to me. It hadn’t the same depths like other Auster books. The main character being a scruffy dog just didn’t work for me. I can remember I felt the story had a bit a too much constructed plot, just because you’re dealing with a dog here. Making the dog able to understand people? It’s a bit too easy.

Alex Robinson – Box Office Poison

This was my Graphic Novel portion for this month – I have no graphic novel buying frenzy planned for the following weeks, so there probably won’t be one in my next list, though you never know off course how much i break my own promises – but boy did I love it. It wasn’t too alternative underground this time, although it still had this typical American “look at me, cause I’m neurotic feel to it”. Box office poison deals with the life of twenty-somethings in New York, growing up; It was like a more serious version of Friends in a way. One of the main characters is a comic book artist (see, it’s all self-indulgent), and ends up working for this guy who invented a famous super hero, but doesn’t get the recognition for it. But it’s also about friendship, relationships… really nice one…

Hugo Claus – Friday

Hugo Claus is supposed to be one of the finest writers to have ever lived in Belgium, the one Belgian writer ever been named for the Nobel prize, but I never had read something from him before. Excuse me: I had tried, but put the book away after 10 pages, cause it bored the hell out of me. Friday was okay, because it was a play, and because it was short. It’s about this man who returns from prison where he has been because he supposedly sexually harassed his own daughter. His wife in the meantime got pregnant from the man’s best friend. The emotional relationships between those three characters, the doubt about the guilt or innocence from the father..it was quite interesting. But there are so many referrings to a world in Flanders that no longer exists, that it also seemed archaic… I guess that most people nowadays will think this is just out of time.

Magnus Mills – The Scheme for Full Employment

Magnus Mills is a British writer, who is writing about absurd situations. Not very high-brow literature, but just a writer who likes to amuse his audience. I read a few books of him, and quite liked this one. It’s about the Plan, a sort of government business that involves people riding down in vans from one storage place to another, being on very tight time schedules. People that are part of the plan get payed good, have job security. But then there is this feud about the time schedules, and everything starts crumbling down. Witty stuff.

Mario Reading – The New Prophecies of Nostradamus

I’m interested in the obscure, and Nostradamus has fascinated me. But,  I also think it’s a lot of bollocks. Mario Readings thinks it’s not and tried to interpret quite a few of Nostradamus’ predictions. I bought this book from a friend who works in a secondhand bookstore, and texted her just a few hours later that this is probably the worst book I’ve ever read in my entire life (well, no..nothing beats Siloam in Dutch translation) . You see, Mario Reading’s readings are laughably far-fetched. He connects dots by pulling a curly line from point A to point Q, to end up at point B. If he reads about burning suns, he’ll look up some sort of mythology, going from Egyptian to Persian mythology, and then come up with an interpretation that makes me think the writer’s a bit schizophrenic. This book got released in 2006, and the fact that every interpretation thus far, is completely wrong, proves my point. Don’t buy this junk.

Michel Tournier -The Ogre (book cover is in Dutch, exactly like the book I have)

Classic of the month. Don’t know how I do it, but I always end up reading at least one novel that is part of world literature a month. Anyway, this one definitely deserves to be there. It’s perhaps quite the dramatic, baroque and intellectual – with all the cultural references – story, but it touches a strange nerve that only classics are able to touch. I don’t know. These books have proven themselves, and though the status of this book is probably not that big in Anglosaxon parts of the world, it is also a book of a certain status. The story is quite hard to just put into a few words, but it’s about this man Tiffauges, who has his own garage on the dawn of World War 2, but has this urging sense of some sort of holy mission in his life. I don’t wanna spoil the rest of the story, but the outcome seems to be quite gruesome. It’s an allegory about the dark sides of life, without even realizing it until you finish it.

Brian Evenson – The Wavering Knife

This guy was on my list for a long time, as many others, but I finally decided to buy a copy of one of his books. Based upon reviews I read about other works of him, I had suspected more something in the line of Chuck Palahniuk, but Evenson is gruesome in a different way. He has this aura of intellectuality over him, which i like at times, and deals not so much with typical american themes. That being said, some of his stories are hilarious, e.g. the one where a disgruntled German man writes an essay about a travel guide his grandfather has written about mexico. He’s raving about the poor English translation by this American writer, but it turns out the English book isn’t even close to a translation. It’s a different book all together. Very nice one. Really makes me wanna read one of his novels.

Ian McEwan – Amsterdam

A modern classic perhaps, but one that didn’t appeal to me that much. Just up until the ending, when I decided that i was curious enough to read it all the way to the end. Here, the artifial atmosphere of intellectuality quite bothered me. An editor-in-chief of a news paper, a classical composer… I normally don’t care about jobs and lives, but I always have a hard time if books have characters of a certain standing (That’s why victorian novels don’t appeal to me at all). That being said, I think the book had some interesting themes, and the ending was quite surprising. I just think it would’ve worked better as a short story though.

Things I am reading now, but haven’t finished yet, are: Roland Topor, Daniil Charms and Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. Enjoying all three of them.

See you next time.

Atonement

The release of the film version of Atonement is what motivated me to pick up the novel in the first place. When I returned on campus Saturday evening, I was summoned to my dorm lobby to watch Atonement. The timing couldn’t have been better.

The plot is identical to the novel version- in 1935, young Briony Tallis makes a life altering error when she witnesses the budding love between her sister, Cecelia, and their charlady’s son, Robbie. We follow Briony, Cecilia, and Robbie through World War II and the aftermath of Briony’s awful mistake. It’s a remarkably faithful and streamlined adaptation. I smiled to see a nod to a chapter where Mrs. Tallis lies in bed with a headache and feels everything occurring in her house.

As a film, Atonement is gorgeous- beautiful colors, lovely costumes, and daring camera angles. I’d never seen a film directed by Joe Wright before, but I think I must seek him out further- he’s even attached to the remake of My Fair Lady starring Daniel Day Lewis and Keira Knightley, which I’m going to see anyway. (As a totally irrelevant side note, I am furiously disappointed Jeremy Irons isn’t playing Higgins.) Wright frames his actors in cunning and fresh ways, and contrasts Cecilia and Robbie against each other in the best of ways. It deals with Atonement’s overlapping of scenes by rewinding slightly and showing scenes again from a different perspective, which is the most effective with the first encounter between Cecilia and Robbie Briony witnesses.

The film really nails Cecilia and Robbie’s relationship, which makes it even more of a disappointment when Briony, the heart of the novel and the film, fails to measure up. For anyone who reads the novel, Briony’s innocent motivation is simple- protecting her sister from the advances of a man she believes is a sex maniac. The film doesn’t explore her motivation as thoroughly as it should. While it’s easy for a reader of the novel to understand Briony’s motivation, it’s harder for someone coming to the story through the film to understand her motivation. Briony ought to be a figure of great pity, but the girls I watched the film began to call for Briony’s blood soon after her horrific mistake. That is a fault of the writing, not the three actresses who portray Briony. The writing also adds in a scene where Robbie hallucinates speaking to his mother, an addition that confused and vexed me.

Saoirse Ronan is magnificent as the young Briony. She is precise, blindingly blue eyed, and terribly naive. I’m amazed by Ronan’s talent. I’m greatly looking forward to The Lovely Bones to see her act once more. Atonement is her film debut, which just floored me. Vanessa Redgrave as the elderly Briony is equally perfect- delicate, gnawed at by guilt, and resigned. The weak link is Romola Garai. Garai is quite a capable actress, but she’s way out of her league between Ronan and Redgrave. There are a few moments where she breaks through and becomes the Briony she ought to be for the entire performance, but these are too few. It’s quite a shame.

Atonement is well worth seeing solely for the direction and the wonderful performances by the cast, but it’s missing Briony’s heart as so thoroughly explored in the novel. I find the novel superior.

You can read my review of the novel here.

6- Ian McEwan (l’auteur qui m’a donné envie d’apprendre l’écriture créative à East Anglia et que j’ai étudié en maîtrise, à travers l’ouvrage First Love, Last Rites). Et il me dit quoi, lui ? “Tu marches sur mes traces en suivant à ton tour la formation à East Anglia, bientôt ton premier recueil de nouvelles. Alterner innocence et provocation dans l’écriture, ma recette favorite, la tienne aussi, peut-être ?”

7-J.D Salinger (le mystérieux auteur de The Catcher in the Rye, roman culte sur l’adolescence aux USA). Son conseil ? “Ne recherche pas à devenir un personnage public mais écris un ouvrage mythique. Utilise l’argot, montre des personnages qui sont soit enfants, soit qui comprennent les enfants.”

8-Julia Cameron (auteure de la méthode artistique Libérez votre créativité, scénariste et auteure). Que me dit-elle ? “Tous les jours écris 3 pages, le matin au réveil. Il se peut qu’au bout d’un moment, sans t’en rendre compte, tu aies écrit un début de roman. Au bout d’un mois, tu auras 90 pages ! Alors, essaie…”

9-Jill Kargman (auteure du très marrant Momzillas, THE bouquin de chick-lit). Et elle, alors ? “Ecris donc sur la maternité. Observe les mères qui t’entourent. Ecoute leurs histoires et tu as, avant même de t’en douter, matière à un roman qui peut se vendre à gros tirage. Ne lésine surtout pas sur l’humour ni la caricature, copie le style des magazines féminins et tu y es.”

10-Euh, moi, parce que je dois être dedans et je m’autoproclame, capitaine de ma dream team littéraire !

Since getting my first iPod as a gift some four years ago, I’ve downloaded countless gigs of all forms of media. One of my favorite things to download is podcasts. Over the last few years, I’ve tried out hundreds of different podcasts, but have now narrowed it down to 15 or 20 that I listen to on a regular basis. I thought I would share with you my top 5 podcasts:

1.) Slate Culture Gabfest – This is a must listen if you want to stay current on all things related to culture. The shows regular panel consists of Dana Stevens, Julia Turner and Stephen Metcalf, though they are frequently joined by other members of the Slate.Com staff. The content leans towards the “high brow” and much of it involves material published in Northeast publications (i.e. New York Times, The New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, etc.), but it provides an inside look at what intellectual elitists all over the nation are talking about.  The most recent episode included a review of the controversial new Lee Daniels’ movie Precious, a review of the Ian McEwan novel Black Dogs to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall and Jim Windolf’s recent Vanity Fair article on “cuteness.”

2.)  Slate Political Gabfest – Functions in pretty much the same fashion as the Culture Gabfest–three person panel discusses three issues–only involving politics instead of cultural issues. The normal panel consists of John Dickerson, Emily Bazelon and Slate managing editor, David Plotz. Be warned, the panel leans Left–far Left, but it’s entertaining and informative all the same.

3.) Anything You Ever Wanted to Know – This show is produced by KERA, Dallas’ local public radio station. The show airs each Friday afternoon, but I always listen to it via podcast. The show provides an open forum for listeners to submit questions, either on the phone or through e-mail, to be answered by other members of the listening audience and is moderated by Jeff Whittington. Over the past three years, I’ve learned some fascinating things from the show.

4.) The Writer’s Almanac Podcast – Hosted by Garrison Keillor, the show serves as a “this day in literary history” for lovers of words.  Normally, Keillor lists off several key events for each day and then will focus heavily on one birthday or event before reading a selected “poem of the day.” More than anything else, the show has introduced me to some great new poetry.

5.) NPR Playback – While the other podcasts I listed are released on a weekly or daily basies, the NPR Playback podcast is released on a monthly basis and features audio clips from the archives from 20 years prior. For example, the November podcast features audio from NPR segments from November 1984. I love being transported back to the 80’s and this podcast does just that.

Thought that this might be a good way to keep track of my reading. So whenever I finish a book, I will post about it.

Written in 2001 by British author Ian McEwan and shortlisted for the Booker Prize (McEwan won the 1998 Booker Prize for Amsterdam).

In late 2006, Lucilla Andrews’ autobiography No Time for Romance became the focus of a posthumous controversy when it was alleged that McEwan plagiarized from this work while writing Atonement. McEwan professed his innocence and several high profile authors leapt to his defence, including the reclusive Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow).

I liked Atonement and would give it 4 stars. I would also like to mention the unexpected C-bombs that get dropped…

De voorbije twee maanden wat minder gelezen, al werd dat gelukkig wel gecompenseerd door een paar heel fijne leeservaringen.

• Patrick Ness - The Ask And The Answer. Tweede deel van de Chaos Walking-trilogie, waarvan het derde deel gepland staat voor 2010. Samengevat: vermoedelijk het beste jeugdboek dat ik las sinds, uhm, m’n jeugd. Inhoudelijk zit het anders, maar je zou het kunnen vergelijken met The Lord Of The Rings: het eerste deel is lichter van toon, kleurrijk, haast een avonturenboek. Het tweede deel is een pak donkerder, gewelddadiger en wat taaier. Maar het is een bescheiden triomf geworden: een onheilszwanger en goed geschreven oorlogsboek met sci-fi- en fantasy-elementen, en onderliggende thema’s als genocide, collectieve schuld, individuele verantwoordelijkheid, racisme, etc. (****1/2)
• Ian McEwan – Amsterdam. De gruwel van McEwan wordt gedomesticeerd, nog wat verfijnd, verburgerlijkt en het gevolg is dat z’n boeken toch wat van hun charme verliezen. Nog op het programma: ’s mans meest bejubelde werken Atonement, Saturday en On Chesil Beach. Benieuwd wat dat brengt. (***1/2)
• Anthony Bourdain – Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in The Culinary Underbelly. Een beetje een Jamie Oliver from hell, deze Bourdain. De man staat achter het fornuis is een gerenommeerd New Yorks restaurant en doet uit de doeken hoe het eraan toe gaat in die betere restaurants. Wat volgt is een brok opschepperij van een paar honderd pagina’s, over slavenlabeur, drugsgebruik in e keuken, geweld en andere toestanden die de onwetende restaurantbezoeker zelden of nooit te zien krijgt. Bij momenten héél erg grappig, zeker als je het zootje in je achterhoofd verplaatst naar een Vlaemsche locatie, maar het blijft uiteindelijk ook bij een repetitieve opsomming van sterke verhalen. (***)
• George P. Pelecanos – The Night Gardener en The Turnaround. De eerste is een prima mystery thriller, de tweede is een uitstekende toevoeging aan zijn meer sociaal-realistische werken. (***1/2 en ****)
• A.F.Th. van der Heijden – Doodverf. Elders uitvoerig genoeg besproken. (****)
• Mark Oliver Everett – Things The Grandchildren Should Know. Een van de meest leesbare boeken van een muzikant ooit? Misschien wel, want Everett (E) slaagt erin om de bullshit tot het absolute minimum te beperken. TTGSK bevat de memoires van een man die op z’n veertigste al genoeg heeft meegemaakt voor drie mensenlevens. De toon van het boek is het bijzonderst, een opmerkelijk evenwicht van berusting, ernst en humor. Wordt een groot deel van het boek gespendeerd aan het verziekte gezinsleven van de Everetts, de dood van zijn ouders, de zelfmoord van zijn moeder en de ellende van anderen in zijn omgeving (Everett is echt een shit magnet), dan biedt het ook het verhaal van Eels. Je hoeft echter geen fan te zijn om het te kunnen waarderen. (****)
• Phil Freeman – Sound Levels: Profiles In American Music, 2002-2009. Bundel interviews die Freeman de voorbije jaren schreef voor allerhande publicaties. In deze bundel bespreekt Freeman, een muziekjournalist die zowel over free jazz als extreme metal schrijft, vooral de driehoeksverhouding tussen de artiest, diens rol op het podium en het publiek. Het levert interessante conversaties op met figuren als Tom Waits, Ornette Coleman, Eugene Robinson (Oxbow), Mike Patton, David Thomas (Pere Ubu), de jongens van SunnO))) en een resem andere bekende en minder bekende figuren. Verkrijgbaar als boek of download (voor 3,5 euro) via Lulu. (***1/2)
• Richard Price – Lush Life. Schrijver van Clockers, Freedomland, Samaritan én schrijver voor The Wire. Beetje vergelijkbaar met Pelecanos, maar dan serieuzer, nog meer op de route van het realisme en soms met een Dickensiaanse opzet. Een verhaal over grootstadsmisdaad, maar ook de manier waarop het levens verandert en verhouding bepaalt tussen klassen en rassen. Indrukwekkend (****).
• Paul Auster – Invisible. Of eigenlijk Onzichtbaar, de Nederlandstalige versie. De beste Auster in lange tijd, met typische experimenten én een verhaal dat boeit. (****)
• James Ellroy – Blood’s A Rover. Derde en laatse deel van de Underworld USA-trilogie. Lijkt de stilistische waanzin van de twee vorige delen niet verder te zetten: het boek is iets minder taai en complex dan voorganger The Cold 6000, waardoor het eerder aansluit bij American Tabloid. Het verhaal wordt verdergezet vanaf 1968 en loopt tot 1972. Opnieuw volgt Ellroy drie protagonisten, allemaal op de een of andere manier betrokken bij wat er achter de politieke en criminele schermen gebeurt. FBI, maffia, J. Edgar Hoover, Howard Hughes, communisten, zwarte miltanten, allemaal zitten ze met hun motieven verstrengeld in aanvankelijk onontwarbare verhaallijnen die gaandeweg duidelijker worden. Elementen uit de hardboiled-traditie worden gekoppeld aan een politieke thriller vol paranoia, msileidende façades en geweld. Opnieuw niks voor gevoelige zieltjes (en blijf ervan af als je totaal geen voeling hebt met de politieke geschiedenis van de VS), maar die typische schwung, dat ritmische vertellen, die taalwoede, blijft intact. Een boek dat de noties van de traditionele roman op z’n kop zet en uitpakt met een zeldzame combinatie van ambitie en lef. De voorbije jaren kwam je redelijk wat pastiches tegen van ’s mans ultra-herkenbare stijl, al kan je niet anders dan vermoeden dat het gaat om een verdedigingsmechanisme. Het is immers weinigen gegeven (Selby? Miller?) om keer op keer zo verwoestend uit te halen en of je nu houdt van die stijl of niet, het is als getuige zijn van een razende natuurkracht. Blood’s A Rover is een beklemmend, verwarrend en overdonderend meesterwerk. Het is inderdaad maar misdaadliteratuur. Het schrijft ook 95% van de Vlaamse schrijversgilde op een navelstaarderig hoopje. (*****)
• Eugene S. Robinson – A Long Slow Screw. Beantwoordt aan wat ik ervan verwachtte. Een bevlogen misdaadroman in de hardboiled-traditie. Al is overcooked misschien beter, want Robinsons geweld gaat net iets verder dan dat van zijn voorgangers. Begint wat krampachtig en komt moeilijk op gang, al is de tweede helft een overtuigende rit. (***1/2)
• Nu bezig: David Simon – Homicide: A Year On The Killing Streets. Om de Wire-ervaring nog eens mee te maken.

NP: Digital Primitives - Hum, Crackle & Pop

Two recent works stand out for me. If you haven’t seen it yet, get your hands on a copy of Von Donnersmarck’s film The Lives of Others. It’s about a ruthless Stasi officer who must put a dissident playwright under total surveillance. What follows is one of the most compelling and moving character transformations I’ve ever seen.

The other is Tom Stoppard’s play Rock ‘N’ Roll. It’s not as good as Arcadia–Stoppard’s masterpiece–but like The Lives of Others, it’s so thematically rich and philosophically insightful, I insist you see it.  Max, a professor of Marxism at Cambridge, visits his former student, Jan, in Prague. It’s 1971 and Husak has tightened the screws. Max is having a bit of trouble dealing with a bout of cognitive dissonance. His theory doesn’t match communist practice. And then:

Max: ‘From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.’ What could be more simple, more rational, more beautiful? It was the right idea in the wrong conditions for fifty years and counting. A blip. Christ, we waited long enough for someone to have it.

Jan: A blip. Stalin killed more Russians than Hitler. Perhaps we aren’t good enough for this beautiful idea. This is the best we can do with it. Marx knew we couldn’t be trusted. First the dictatorship, till we learned to be good, then the utopia where a man can be a baker in the morning, a lawmaker in the afternoon and a poet in the evening. But we never learned to be good, so look at us. A one-legged man showed up at my school once. He waited outside the classroom. It turned out that the man with one leg had come to say good-bye to our teacher. Afterwards, the teacher explained to us his friend lost his leg in the war, so as a special favor he’d been given permission to go and live near his sister somewhere in north Bohemia. ‘You see,’ our teacher said, ‘how Communism looks after its war heroes.’ So I put my hand up. God, I must have been stupid. I really thought it would be interesting for them, so I said in England anyone could live anywhere they liked, even if they had two legs. My mother was questioned and she lost her job at the shoe factory, but the point is the other kids in the class. They thought I was telling travellers’s tales. They couldn’t grasp the idea of a country where someone, anyone, could decide to move to another town and just go there. Suppose everybody wanted to live in Bohemia when their job is in Moravia! How would such a society work?

I also found Tom Rob Smith’s two novels to be quite good. Child 44 is a cracking good read. And Ian McEwan’s The Innocent is a tight, dark thriller about a botched effort to dig a tunnel under the Soviet controlled section of Berlin. Any other suggestions?

Being sick for the last few days, my motivation to study was lower than usual… And my motivation to do other things was even lower… But for some strange reason, my attention was drawn to the books in my bookcase… the books that i had bought (most likely on impulse) and hadn’t read yet.

I picked a book today titled What We Believe But Cannot Prove. It’s a collection of short (1-2pg) essays written by various people—journalists, tv producers, scientists—on a simple topic. Popular themes included evolution, consciousness, god, and complicating scientific concepts such as string theory…

Reading some of these reminded me of the limits of knowledge that humans are capable of. Growing up as a skeptic, I was always struggling to explain something completely and wanting any information being fed to me proved, when in reality, not everything we claim to be true can be explained to others with confidence. (The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle!!)

Ever since i started going to college, i became more open to listening to what others have to say to me. Now that didn’t mean that i believed everything they told me. I was listening to them not to be convinced and to accept their way of thinking, but more for their intriguing insights. The very fact that they believe in something that i may never understand was a curiosity. I had also learned while in college, that things that people claim to be proof should not be trusted. Photos are often edited and people’s words are twisted to create different meanings. (snopes is always a nice place to visit)

So here’s what I think. We should ask for an explanation for anything that anyone tells you, that is, be a skeptic even for a short time. I think questioning everything i hear is a good way of getting engaged in a conversation and especially a good way to get to know how the people around you think.

More importantly, what we believe (and cannot prove) often should remain personal. If you believe in a certain concept, you should feel free to express your thoughts to others, but don’t expect those other people to accept what you believe in. Understanding a concept and accepting a concept should not be equivalent. I feel like i understand some of the reasons why people believe in god or why people believe in string theory. But that doesn’t mean i’ll accept it as the truth. And it also doesn’t mean that i should go in the faces of those who believe and yell “NONSENSE!!” Because we believe in different things, it’s important to accept those differences, perhaps suggest an alternative way of thinking (without forcing its acceptance), and have your own stand. I will listen to what people have to say, but i will choose for myself if i should believe everything i had just heard. And the people telling others their beliefs should not become so intent on convincing/converting others.

I haven’t finished reading the book (i jump from page to page), but i picked up something that i’m constantly concerned with from the 1-paragraph essay that novelist Ian McEwan returned:

What I believe but cannot prove is that no part of my consciousness will survive my death. … … However, it divides the world crucially, and much damage has been done to thought as well as persons by those who are certain that there is life—a better, more important life—elsewhere. That this span is brief, that consciousness is an accidental gift of blind processes, makes our existence all the more precious and our responsibilities for it all the more profound.

De Ian McEwan. No era todos los domingos, si no cada 15 días…

El Página trae cada 15, entonces, un pequeño y dulce Anagrama a $9 (sin contar el diario).

Hoy, me traje a casa la colección de cuentos del escritor ingles, Ian McEwan. No leí estos cuentos, pero él es sumamente recomendable.

Este es el libro original. La edición de Página es más de bolsillo, pero esta muy buena.

How exciting, I’m going to be a secret Santa! I’ve dropped my name in Santa’s bag for the Book Bloggers Holiday Swap. Want to join as well? Be quick: subscription ends November 12th!

Good thing the holiday swap perked me up because my attempt at the Bookcrossing Spooky Booky 24 hour readathon was an absolute #FAIL. I knew I was on a tight schedule last week, but I had hoped to at least beat last month’s result of 15 hours and 8 minutes. Well… I didn’t even come close! [starts whispering] I scrambled together a meagre total of 7 hours, 10 minutes

So the ’spooky’ book I’m reading is still the same as last Sunday: In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. It’s pretty grim! It shows the real thing to fear are our fellow humans; not those Halloween ghosts, vampires or zombies. Capote absolutely has me by the throat!

A more relaxing bookish event that took place at my home yesterday was that some Boekgrrls came over to watch Revolutionary Road, the movie adaptation of Richard Yates’ novel. The overall opinion? Director Sam Mendes did a great job (even though the book is still way better). I’m just not sure whether I would have liked the film as much had I not read the book beforehand.

Another minor detail: I kept seeing Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet instead of Frank and April Wheeler… But still, I’m glad to have seen it: I enjoyed it much, much more than, in example, the adaptations of Atonement and Enduring Love (other books I really like). Although ‘enjoy’ might not be the right word for a story like Revolutionary Road…

Well, I’ve only got another 100 pages left of In Cold Blood, so coming week I hope to start in The Old Capital, by Yasunari Kawabata for my Japanese Literature Book Group. I’m embarrassed to say I had never heard of this Nobel Prize winner before, but since I know we’re going to read his book I have heard other novelists mention him as an example for their own writings. So, I’ll talk to you next week in The Sunday Salon!

The Sunday Salon is a virtual gathering of booklovers on the web, where they blog about bookish things of the past week, visit each others weblogs, oh — and read

I just posted my thoughts about the 5 megatrends in marketing and how they impact crisis communication. You can find it here on emergencymgmt.

Also I found it interesting that British author Ian McEwen had a nasty run-in with the press. But he realized there was no sense in getting mad, just get even. Apparently he will in his next novel about global warming. He’s including a reporter as a bad guy causing the hero all kinds of problems.

A lista dos meus filmes preferidos tem um novo vencedor: Atonement, que provém da cabeça de Ian McEwan. O top 10 está agora assim:

in last week’s Newsweek, Lisa Miller, the religion editor, of whom I’m not a huge fan in general (though she’s intelligent and mostly reasonable), wrote yet another article on the new atheism and its main leaders, Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Sam Harris (why no Daniel Dennett, the final member of the “four horsemen”?).

I don’t want to discuss her entire article, or some of her specific points, at length, but two of her main points are that these three individuals have unfairly dominated the discussion/debate thus far and that it’s time to move on past the aggression and onto rethinking spirituality, humanism, etc.

regarding the first point, it’s not that these individuals have unduly grabbed a hold of the debate and won’t let anyone else have a turn.  there have been plenty of other books written about atheism — theirs just happen to have been the most successful.  granted, Dawkins and Hitchens were already well known (the former more so, generally) and so there was more attention given to their books, but Harris was virtually an unknown.  he just happened to write two very successful, very persuasive books that caught on.  sure he has done a lot of debating, but he’s also been working on his PhD in neuroscience of some sort and is no media whore.  (by the way, does she know that he doesn’t even like to use the term “atheist”?)

the real reason that they have “hogged” all the attention is simply because people like Lisa Miller won’t shut up about them.  honestly, she’s written at least three or four pieces for Newsweek on them this year already!  and in this vein, you can’t find any broadly appealing piece on the growth of non-religious portions of the country that doesn’t mention “the three” or “the four” (horsemen, that is).  they’ve only been dominating because people like you, Lisa Miller, keep complaining about them.  you are the silver-haired wind in their middle-aged-cracker sails.

and the truth is, she doesn’t appear to have any real clue as to what’s happening in the atheist blogosphere.  there are far louder and much more prolific voices on the internet (PZ Myers comes to mind), and there is a grand variety of atheists out there whose levels of “stridency” and whose views regarding religion vary enormously.  for those atheists concerned more about the undue influence of religion in the public sphere than about winning arguments, there’s Hemant Mehta, your Friendly Atheist.  and then there’s the somewhat overlapping, ongoing debate among professional scientists about how science should relate (or more accurately, how scientists should try to relate science) to religion, aka the “accommodationist” debate.  so here you have a lot of writers, some of whom may be non-religions but that’s irrelevant, who are opposed to the attempts of people like Francis Collins or Kenneth Miller to placate moderately religious Americans by claiming that all’s well between science (read: evolution) and religion.  Jerry Coyne is probably the leading (unconquered) writer in this vein.  there are even non-religious writers/scientists like David Sloan Wilson who see atheism and science as types of religions, further muddying the waters.

anyway, the point is, among atheists and agnostics and secular humanists and the like, “the three” are hardly the most active or the loudest voices.  what about writers like Ian McEwan or Victor Stenger?  it’s one of those, “Well, everyone’s talking about them so they must be the most important” things that endlessly perpetuates itself.

the second point, which is a good one, is also problematic when it comes out of Miller’s mouth because, as I hinted at in the last point, there are tons of writers and groups out there for non-religious people who are doing just that — focusing on re-conceiving our notions of ethics and morality and what it means to be “good without god.”  there is the Secular Coalition for America, a lobbyist group, there’s the Center for Inquiry, and there are all sorts of secular student groups and local communities that have been raising their voices and getting media attention lately.  you know all those billboards going up around the country (and in other countries) and needlessly causing a stir?  well, those poster boys have nothing to do with it.

even the first bus campaign in England was started by a hitherto unknown, Ariane Sherine.  sure, Richard Dawkins donated some funds and took a publicity ride, but he joined after the fact.

and what about the Brights?  it’s a designation chosen by non-religious intellectuals who want a more positive take on their outlook, as opposed to “atheist.”  plus, it’s a more proactive way of understanding the world, not just by what you don’t believe, but by how you think the world can and should be understood.  here you find all sorts of very influential intellectuals, include Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett, yes, but also Michael Shermer and Steven Pinker.  in fact, for many people, atheism implies a secular, naturalistic, humanistic outlook.  (fyi, Sam Harris also dislikes the term “bright”; he is very picky.)

speaking of Sam Harris — the entire latter part of his The End of Faith was about the future beyond faith, exploring new areas of human spirituality that go beyond our inherited traditions!  his book was essentially about the very thing Miller says we should be doing instead of what she accuses him of doing!  Jerry Coyne briefly touches on this here.

finally, moving on to a topic/group Miller does cover, there are various humanistic groups out there, represented in her article by Greg Epstein, Harvard’s Humanist Chaplain.  Epstein is the author of the soon-to-be-published Being Good without God, a topic he is very enthusiastic about.  his approach is an entirely positive one, focusing on what “a billion non-religious people do believe” and helping to create renewed sense of meaning and even (gasp) spirituality among non-religious persons.  he is by far not the only person with this outlook of course.  I think of the ethicist Peter Singer or the author Ronald Aronson, who wrote the influential (and on my wishlist) Living without God, or even the sociologist Phil Zuckerman, who write last year’s popular Society without God (also on my list).

in fact, Germany has had a figure like Epstein for a while now in the person of Michael Schmidt-Salomon, a well-known German humanist writer and apologist (who is associated with the atheist camp though he also avoids the term).  he has worked to try to encourage humanism and take the debate and media flurries surrounding the “new atheism” to a “new humanism” (whence the title of this post).

in any case, I do believe that in the case of the non-religions, any media attention is good attention, as more and more people realize they are not alone in their unbelief (as the billboards proclaim), and that they too have a say in what happens in this country and in this world.  and it has also been (or at least will be) helpful (even if still shocking) for people to realize that there are non-religious persons (even atheists!) all around them, and that’s a good thing.  Schmidt-Salomon talks about this, and uses the wonderful German word “stinknormal” to describe how average these atheists prove to be once people take a look at them (Der Sensationswert des Atheismus verglühte im Scheinwerferlicht und man stellte fest, dass „diese Atheisten“ letztlich auch nur stinknormale Leute sind, kaum geheimnisvoller als Mutti Krause von nebenan.)

and hopefully the public attention will continue to turn and focus on this other side of being non-religions.  it’s not all about put downs and arguments  — it’s also about excitement about what we do know about ourselves and this world, along with how we continue to go about understanding both, and creating room in public discussions about science, ethics, morality, policy, the environment, etc., for those of us who don’t feel the need to appeal to tradition or revelation or supposedly unchanging religious values in order to have a reasonable, fruitful conversation about our future.