In this podcast: Will the written word be dead in twenty-five years? A response to Phillip Roth’s comments: are books and newspapers obsolete? How about the Kindle? Will reading be the next punk-rock counter-culture thing?

“…against all those screens, I think, the book can’t measure up.”
- Phillip Roth

Follow the Quote to the Daily Beast: The most celebrated American author is at the height of his powers in his latest novel, The Humbling. In a rare video interview—his only for this book—Philip Roth sits down with Tina Brown for The Daily Beast’s new Web series, The Beast Bar, to talk about writing, mortality, politics, and why he thinks the novel is a dying animal.

About Phillip Roth
Philip Roth received the 1960 National Book Award in fiction for Goodbye, Columbus. He has twice received the National Book Critics Circle Award—in 1987 for the novel The Counterlife and in 1992 for Patrimony. Operation Shylock won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and was chosen by Time magazine as the best American novel of 1993. In 1995, Roth’s Sabbaths Theater received the National Book Award in fiction. In 1998, he received the Pulitzer Prize for American Pastoral and was a White House recipient of the National Medal of Arts. His other books include the trilogy and epilogue Zuckerman Bound; the novels Letting Go, My life as a Man, and The Professor of Desire; and the political satire Our Gang (I feel silly recommending books by Phillip Roth, so I’ll list The Human Stain and feel free to look up everything else).

The Human Stain

It is 1998, the year in which America is whipped into a frenzy of prurience by the impeachment of a president, and in a small New England town, an aging classics professor, Coleman Silk, is forced to retire when his colleagues decree that he is a racist. The charge is a lie, but the real truth about Silk would have astonished even his most virulent accuser.

Coleman Silk has a secret, one which has been kept for fifty years from his wife, his four children, his colleagues, and his friends, including the writer Nathan Zuckerman. It is Zuckerman who stumbles upon Silk’s secret and sets out to reconstruct the unknown biography of this eminent, upright man, esteemed as an educator for nearly all his life, and to understand how this ingeniously contrived life came unraveled. And to understand also how Silk’s astonishing private history is, in the words of The Wall Street Journal, “magnificently” interwoven with “the larger public history of modern America.”

Announcements: Starting January W&L Reviews
 I dislike reviews, especially because writing a book is so difficult that part of me wishes to give a big hug an a huge mug of beer to anyone who manages such a task. But seeing the state of reading in general, I think the short story could certainly use a boost even from the few souls who venture into this corner of the internet (where short stories are loved). Well, why not.  Starting in January 2010, the blog will feature a monthly review of a short fiction collection. Why shot stories? Well because I love them and I’m usually aware (to some degree) of up-and-coming authors and try to be aware of recent collections and what not. I’ll try to keep things balanced, avoid anthologies when necessary, and attempt to find new writers. It’s a great pleasure to discover a new voice in fiction. I remember discovering Daniel Alarcón in VQR and getting his book a few years back. This year, he got a story in the Best American anthology and that makes me really happy. There’s pleasure in sharing good reads, so expect a review at some point early January.

Today we look at our favorite books from the 2000s. Its been a tough few years for the publishing industry, but that hasn’t stopped some of our favorite writers from producing some amazing literature. Before we begin, a warning to readers that, while our choices appear in a numbered order, those numbers are even more arbitrary than usual. That said, don’t hold back in telling us how epically wrong we are in the comments section.

15. Lush Life – Richard Price
If Mystic River is the classic crime novel of the first part of the 21st century, Lush Life is a close second. Richard Price tells the story of a murder from the perspective of nearly everyone effective: cops, the family, a present co-worker, and the murderer. Perhaps the most stunning part of the entire novel is it’s naturalism. It doesn’t have a shocking revelation or constant twists and turns, but instead presents an view into the real world. When the case is close, you move to the next. A powerful work of fiction that could just as easily a true story, Lush Life is an oft-overlooked gem of the 2000s. (M)

14. Mystic River – Dennis Lehane
Dennis Lehane became a master of gritty murder mysteries with Gone Baby Gone and Mystic River, a story about three childhood friends, the roles they inhabit as adults, and the murder of ones daughter. The book separates itself from other murder mysteries with its intricacies and strong characters. Before the novel has a chance to reach it’s climax, it’s unclear as to who is good and bad, keeping the pages turning faster than you can handle. Mystic River is the classic crime novel of the first part of the century. (M)

13. World War Z – Max Brooks Without Max Brooks, zombies may have just been another mid-level meme, fighting with ninjas and vampires for space in the public consciousness. But World War Z moved the zombie apocalypse out of Romero’s intimate locations and tiny groups of survivors and onto a global, geopolitical scale. Brooks’ extensive research and clever structure gives the book a verisimilitude that helps it transcend simple horror and makes it an impactful look at human society (just like Romero’s best films do). (J)

12. Moneyball – Michael Lewis
Few books about sports have ever been as influential as Moneyball. By re-examining the stats that are so highly valued, Michael Lewis made Billy Beane’s once-outlandish concept a strategy adopted by many teams throughout the league. Six years on, teams still put a lot of stock in superstars, but teams like the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays proved Beane’s sabermetric can work. The book really broke the mold on sports books, and nothing yet has been anywhere near as influential. (M)

11. Assassination Vacation – Sarah Vowell
With her second full length, single-topic nonfiction book, Sarah Vowell embraced her nerdy passion for American history and historical tourism, resulting in a compelling book that’s part history and part memoir. Removed from her wispy, public radio delivery, Vowell’s prose flows true as ever and her gifts with metaphor make her quirky stories pop off the page. Self-reflective, fascinating, and unapologetic in its embrace of hokey Americana at a time when real patriotism was hard to come by, Assassination Vacation may not have been an Important book, but it made the 2000s a whole lot more palatable. (J)

10. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime – Mark Haddon
Haddon’s book sounds like too gimmicky by half when you hear its concept, but its his empathetic ability to capture the voice of his autistic main character that makes Curious Incident succeed. A triumph of perspective, at times you forget that you’re reading fiction and become engrossed by how Haddon’s main character sees and experiences the world. (J)

9. The Plot Against America – Philip Roth
Philip Roth had a long and established career even before The Plot Against America, an alternate history story of 1940s America with Charles Lindbergh as president, but the book stands out as his best book of late. As he explores the coming of age of a fictional version of himself, Roth also manages to explore the dark underside of American politics and ideology. It’s a fascinating read that manages to highlight just how easy it is to fall to the trappings of ideology. (M)

8. Consider the Lobster – David Foster Wallace
Rather than dwell on the tragic loss of this generation’s finest writer and what could have been, let’s focus instead on the dizzying legacy he left behind. Of his output this decade, nothing matches Consider the Lobster, an insightful collection of Wallace’s creative nonfiction. From the title essay’s unsentimental but still insightful look at the morality of boiling lobsters alive (written, amusingly enough, as an assignment for Gourmet to cover the Maine Lobster Festival) to a look at conservative talk radio to his sprawling review of A Dictionary of Modern Usage, Wallace’s gifts for treating any subject with intellectual rigor and a critical eye shine through, and his mastery of form and style is unmatched. (J)

7. Everything is Illuminated – Jonathan Safran Foer
Jonathan Safran Foer broke onto the literary scene with Everything is Illuminated a book that manages to be funny, poignant, and crushing throughout it’s course. Foer jumps around in time and place, meshing together three stories, that of his America obsessed tour guide, his ancestry, and himself. Unlike many novels about Jewish persecution and the Diaspora, this one doesn’t center on the evil, but rather how a way of life was shattered for people. An engrossing, impressive debut from a writer who figures to feature prominently in the the 2010s. (M)

6. The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
You are allowed to be as smug as Malcolm Gladwell is when you’re that smart. In his breakthrough nonfiction look at the way ideas and products spread like viruses. Loaded with fascinating case studies and Gladwell’s hyper-intellectual prose, The Tipping Point is an interesting sociological examination of human nature, and one that has only become more relevant in the age of Twitter and Facebook. (J)

5. Atonement – Ian McEwan
So many novels deal with regret and making up for the past, but Ian McEwan’s Atonementis in a league of it’s own. The novel is the story of a girl who’s childhood misunderstanding stays with her the rest of her life. If the first three sections aren’t heart wrenching enough for you, the final fourth will tear you apart. As much as Kavalier and Clay settles the regret and disappointment of its characters in it’s final act, Atonement makes it’s central character pay for hers. McEwan’s brilliant prose makes the story even more compelling and made Atonement and easy choice for this list. (M)

4. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince/Deathly Hollows – J.K. Rowling
One of the most interesting parts of the Harry Potter series is that many of the readers grew with Harry as it went on. Those that started reading at the age of 12 in 1998 when the first book hit stateside were 21 by the time the series wrapped in 2007. Those that read during those 10 years (11 if you were in the UK) were treated to two final books that contrasted greatly from the lighter themes of the books of their childhood. In both novels, Rowling dispenses with the boy wizard aspect of her novels and delves into the tale of a young man being faced with a task barely suited for a man. The books are easily the best fantasy books since Tolkien and will continue to enchant for years to come. (M)

3. The Road – Cormac McCarthy
Despite what Zombieland would have you believe, the apocalypse is actually probably going to suck. Cormac McCarthy is the perfect person to make that point with his incredibly bleak look at a father and son trying to survive in the face of the horrors that come with the destruction of society. McCarthy takes an unflinching look at the terrifying things humans are capable of doing to each other (not exactly new ground for Cormac, but still compelling stuff), while grounding it in the struggle of The Man and The Boy to retain their humanity. (J)

2. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius – Dave Eggers
Before James Frey, Dave Eggers was busy putting the “creative” in creative nonfiction. By filling his memoir with fourth-wall breaking asides and creative flourishes, Eggers’ book is simultaneously less than a truthful depiction of his life and something much, much more. Let’s not blame Dave for the flood of tedious and crappy memoirs that followed in his wake and instead celebrate an author with complete command of his craft. (J)

1. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay – Michael Chabon
Sitting at the crossroads of comic books and literature, of pulp and high art, Michael Chabon’s novel is a celebration of the struggles that go into making even the most disposable of cultural detritus. Chabon’s delirious blend of joyous, golden age superheroes with the tragedies of World War II and the immigrant experience to America could have crushed under the weight of trying to do too much. Instead, he crafted a clear-eyed and moving tribute to the American experience that resonates past its period setting. (J)

A staggering work of fiction, Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is easily one of the most engrossing novels you’ll ever read. Amidst the lushly described landscapes of New York in the 40s and 50s, Chabon sets up an intricate story that doesn’t follow a linear path, but instead branches off in every direction. When early 21st century literature is studied 50, 100 years from now, Kavalier and Clay will be front and center as the defining American novel of the time. (M)

Hace semanas que tenía pendiente el bookcrossing de la última novela que he leído, la fantástica Ravelstein de Saul Bellow, una novela cuya portada mis ojos habrían esquivado repelidos por un título sin significado, y cuyas tres primeras páginas casi me echaron. Como si el autor quisiera ponerme a prueba: “Sólo conocerás a Ravelstein, sólo compartiré a mi amigo contigo, si lo mereces, ¡gánatelo!”. Una apuesta arriesgada, que sólo un clásico (aunque sea contemporáneo) como Bellow puede permitirse. Noveles, abstenerse.

Pero tras haber visto la última de Woody Allen, Si la cosa funciona, me resulta imposible no relacionarlas. Comparten entre sí y con otras obras, como los libros sobre Zuckerman escritos por Philip Roth (el último, Sale el espectro) el nexo de ese anciano judío neoyorquino cascarrabias, más aún, objetable, en comportamiento,actitudes, pero con el atractivo de un Empire State imantado.

Alguien, además, que en estas latitudes resulta un personaje tan de ciencia ficción como los de La Guerra de las Galaxias. Una no puede evitar preguntarse, ¿qué habría pasado, cómo seríamos, si no los hubiéramos echado? ¿Cómo pudimos perder esas personalidades y las de sus creadores: Roth, Bellow, Allen?

Puesto que no tenemos otra manera de disfrutarlos, cualquier oportunidad debe aprovecharse. Si la cosa funciona sin ser, no ya genial sino siquiera original (no lo pretende), divierte y tiene esos chispazos de “vida verdadera” que para mi justifican el arte, en cualquiera de sus formas.

Y la novela, Ravelstein, hay que leerla. A falta de uno, tiene dos de esos viejos judíos neoyorquinos, intelectuales, poliédricos, únicos por más veces que se los haya retratado: el citado Abe Ravelstein y Chick, el narrador, y supuesto autor del libro que se quiere hacer pasar por una biógrafía del primero. Biografía heterodoxa, por lo menos. Hecha con pinceladas sueltas, manchas que no parecen dispuestas según ningún orden durante bastante tiempo (para lo que es un libro de 250 páginas) pero que en un determinado momento, nuestros ojos empiezan a ver como algo conexo, como el retrato más verdadero posible, el más cercano a la carne del que un día fuera Abe Ravelstein. Alguien a quien, gracias al libro, hemos conocido, y del que, sin darnos cuentas, incluso a pesar nuestro, nos hemos hecho amigos. Igual que de su biógrafo. Y también, en cierto sentido, de Bellow.

Si mido lo que me gustan los libros por lo que los subrayo si son míos o lleno de post-it si son prestados, éste me ha encantado. Tengo tantos papelitos pegados que me cuesta seleccionar las citas. Muchas tienen que ver con la muerte y a este grupo pertenecen las dos primeras que reproduzco. Pero añado una tercera para ilustrar el tono del libro que no es tétrico, ni triste, en absoluto.

Al preguntarme qué idea me hacía de la muerte, cómo la imaginaba, le dije que cesarían las imágenes. Pp. 166
(…) pero nadie, en el fondo de su mente y en el fondo de su corazón, cree que vayan a ceras de veras las imágenes. Pp. 245

Son muchos los que quieren verse libres de los muertos. Yo, en cambio, tiendo a aferrarme a ellos. Me acosa el presentimiento insistente –tendría que haber quedado aclarado a estas alturas- de que no se han ido para siempre (…) Sé que cuando se reconoce este tipo de fantasías uno pierde respetabilidad intelectual. Hasta yo mismo, puedo asegurarlo, cedo ante la opinión aceptada. Pero tiene que haber explicaciones simples que justifiquen la persistencia de Ravelstein en mi vida diaria. (…) Lo que ocurre es que no puedo dejar de procesar una información por el hecho de que no es intelectualmente respetable. Pp. 206

Si usted se marcha porque su odio al tabaco es más grande que su amor a las ideas, no le echaremos de menos. Pp. 174

In honor of the National Book Award finalist being announced, I was telling my boyfriend about the NBA non-fiction finalist, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten City by Greg Grandin.  He interned at General Motors the past two summers, and is an avid car enthusiast, and so I knew he would enjoy the story of Henry Ford’s failed rubber factory/ideal American society in the middle of the Amazon.

That got us talking about Ford’s infamous political sympathies.  It’s well-known Ford was a Nazi sympathizer, as was another giant figure in 20th century American history: Charles Lindburgh.  That reminded me of the excellent Phillip Roth novel, The Plot Against America, in which Charles Lindburgh, spurred on by the popularity of his abducted child, is persuaded to run for president.  When he wins, his anti-Semitism overtakes the White House and the country.  It’s a fascinating story, and you can’t go wrong with Roth.  Even though I haven’t read Fordlandia yet, I highly reccomend both books.

And speaking of the National Book Award, here are the 2009 finalists:

Fiction:
American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin
Lark and Termite by Jayne Anne Phillips
Far North by Marcel Theroux

Non-Fiction:
Following the Water: A Hydromancer’s Notebook by David M. Carroll
Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species by Sean B. Carroll
Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
The Poison King:  The Life and Legend of Mithradates, Rome’s Deadliest Enemy by Adrienne Mayor
The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbuilt by T.J. Stiles

Poetry:
Versed by Rae Armantrout
Or to Begin Again by Ann Lauterbach
Speak Low by Carl Phillips
Open Interval by Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon
Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy by Keith Waldrop

Young Adult:
Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
Stitches by David Small
Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor
Jumped by Rita Williams-Garcia

João Heliofar de Jesus Villar*

Phillip Roth é hoje um dos mais respeitados escritores nos Estados Unidos. Frequentemente seu nome é mencionado nas cogitações do Prêmio Nobel de Literatura. Num estilo seco, agradável de ler, em histórias que sempre tem como pano de fundo a realidade judaica americana, seus romances ganharam o mundo.

Em sua última obra, “Indignação”, o autor narra a saga de um jovem judeu, filho de um açougueiro kosher, que, durante a guerra da Coreia, consegue se livrar do alistamento, mantendo-se na universidade. Porém, inscrito em uma instituição cristã profundamente conservadora, o aluno se vê sob o risco de expulsão continuamente, pois não aceitava as restrições impostas pela faculdade, especialmente o dever de frequentar cultos semanalmente. O romance gira em torno dessa tensão; isto é, o aluno, que sustentava sua rebeldia como uma questão de honra, equilibrava-se numa corda bamba, pois, caso fosse expulso, teria de enfrentar as trincheiras geladas da guerra do extremo oriente.

A história constitui pano de fundo para mais um ataque cruel ao cristianismo e revela como o caldo de cultura ocidental está cada vez mais hostil à fé. Mesmo um autor sofisticado como Roth não consegue vencer a tentação de passar uma visão maniqueísta do confronto do jovem rebelde com a direção de uma instituição cristã.

Num diálogo com o diretor da faculdade de direito (um “apaixonado por Jesus”), o jovem judeu afirma com grande orgulho que é ateu e que Bertrand Russel já havia demonstrado suficientemente a total falta de lógica dos argumentos a favor da existência de Deus, na obra “Por que não sou cristão”. E acrescenta que Russel teria afirmado com toda propriedade que Jesus não poderia jamais ser tido na conta de um bom mestre, tendo em vista os seus ensinos sobre o inferno. A doutrina do inferno seria completamente inaceitável, suficiente para arruinar a reputação de Cristo, por mais elevados que fossem os demais ensinos éticos firmados nos evangelhos. Diante desse ataque, o diretor da faculdade de direito se limita a fazer ataques à conduta pessoal de Bertrand Russel, que seria uma figura amoral, adúltero etc. Do ponto de vista racional, porém, suas críticas seriam irrespondíveis.

A história se passa nos anos 50, mas é bastante atual, com a diferença de que hoje, nas universidades, a posição dominante é a do herói de Roth, especialmente no corpo docente. E a tendência de hostilização intelectual é tão forte e crescente que intimida abertamente os cristãos mais ortodoxos.

Uma prova de que a intimidação já chegou ao centro da igreja é o silêncio envergonhado nos púlpitos a respeito do inferno. Se hoje Jonathan Edwards pregasse “Pecadores nas mãos de um Deus irado” em qualquer lugar, perderia imediatamente seu cargo de reitor da Universidade de Princeton, seria escorraçado da igreja, e ninguém mais ouviria falar no seu nome. Talvez os conceitos de Russel a respeito do tema tenham se infiltrado no inconsciente cristão de tal modo que ninguém consiga tratar do assunto sem suscitar em si um profundo sentimento de culpa diante do ouvinte secular.

Na verdade, se fosse possível, talvez convocássemos um concílio para revogar o inferno por algum tipo de decreto a fim de que fosse declarada a paz com a modernidade e ninguém falasse mais nisso. Falaríamos apenas em amor, graça e tolerância, temas tão caros à piedade moderna. Que o inferno vá para o inferno. Talvez ficasse difícil explicar para quê serve a salvação — seremos salvo do quê, exatamente? Mas, por certo, teríamos um verniz intelectual muito mais elegante perante nossos interlocutores seculares. Afinal, não é a eles que devemos agradar?

• João Heliofar de Jesus Villar, 45 anos, é procurador regional da República da 4ª Região (no Rio Grande do Sul) e cristão evangélico.

Fonte: Revista Ultimato

Update: This contest is now closed.

Our first ever audiobook giveaway ends tomorrow at 12:00 pm sharp. If you haven’t yet entered for a chance to win a copy of Phillip Roth’s Exit Ghost, all you have to do is leave a comment about your favorite Recorded Books narrator in the “July’s Audiobook Contest is Now Open!” thread.

See you tomorrow at noon, and good luck!

So I’ve told you that my favorite author is Amy Hempel, right? Let me share with you what is possibly my second favorite author (though it’s a tight knit cluster towards the top of great literature, the post modernist), Don Delillo.

I’ll make this simple and easy…

Name: Don Delillo.

Born: November 20, 1936 in New York.

Died: Thankfully not yet. He’s 72.

Best known novel: Either White Noise or Underworld.

Last published novel: Falling Man, about a survivor of 9/11. The title, of course, is based on this classic image:

Which is entitled “The Falling Man” and was taken by Richard Drew at 9:41 AM on September 11, 2001.

Next novel: Omega Point is the title, which is… so very intriguing. It’ll be his 15th novel. It’s scheduled for release in February, 2010, which is too far away.

Plot description: “A young filmmaker visits the desert home of a secret war adviser in the hopes of making a documentary. The situation is complicated by the arrival of the older man’s daughter, and the narrative takes a dark turn.”

from here.

Things that primarily inspire him: “Abstract expressionism, foreign films, and jazz.” Also, the things we do to history. And the things that history does to us in return.

Themes he likes/keeps returning to in his work: rampant consumerism, novelty intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and re-integration of the family, and the promise of rebirth through violence (from wikipedia, but wikipedia is right). Also, mass media pollution, the collision and interchangeability of words and images, and the draining of meaning and context from an event as our lives are filled up with more and more simulacra.

Writers who cite him as a major influence: Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Franzen, and David Foster Wallace.

His place in the world: Harold Bloom has named him as one of the four major novelists of his time, the other three being Cormac McCarthy, Thomas Pynchon, and Phillip Roth.

His humble beginnings: The world of advertising. He wrote image ads for Sears Roebuck amongst others but eventually quit to start his writing career, including his first novel.

About the start of his writing career, he said: “I did some short stories at that time, but very infrequently. I quit my job just to quit. I didn’t quit my job to write fiction. I just didn’t want to work anymore.”

Forays into film: Only one screenplay so far, for a film entitled Game 6, about the 1986 World Series. The script was written in the 90s, but the film (I don’t know when it was actually produced) came out in 2006, and stars Michael Keaton (who would later go on to do a shitty looking thriller entitled White Noise that has nothing to do with the Delillo book), Griffin Dunne, and Robert Downey, jr. and has a score by Yo La Tengo. The story is classic Delillo.

Theatre: He’s written four plays, two of which, The Day Room and Valparaiso, I’m happy to say I own and have read. The other two, Love-Lies-Bleeding and The Word For Snow, I have not yet.

Just a few of his awards: The National Book Award (for White Noise) and the Jerusalem Prize, which is given to writers who deal with the themes of human freedom, society, politics, and government. And he also won the 2009 Common Wealth Award for Literature.

from here.

The first line of Underworld: “He speaks in your voice, American, and there’s a shine in his eye that’s halfway hopeful.” The opening prologue of the book was also released as it’s own novella, with the separate title, Pafko At The Wall.

Some real talk from White Noise: “All plots move deathwards.”

Musical name checks: Conor Oberst/Bright Eyes, Rhett Miller, Luna, and a band called Too Much Joy. Also, the band called The Airborne Toxic Event got their band name from White Noise.

The first line of Great Jones Street: “Fame requires every kind of excess.”

Don Delillo, as depicted by Brian Wood. From here.

One of my favorite quotes from his books #1: “I don’t want your candor. I want your soul in a silver thimble.”

Fictionalized version of him: blogs for The Onion covering last year’s election.

His three favorite things: “Silence, exile, and cunning. And so on.” Also, paraphrasing James Joyce.

The criticism: There’s been a lot. While there can be no argument that Delillo is a smarter author than a large majority out there, many would say that his books tend towards being over stylized and perhaps a bit intellectually shallow. I think that argument is fair in certain cases.

More criticism: George Will described Delillo’s Libra, which is a study of Lee Harvey Oswald, as “sandbox existentialism,” and then added that the book is an act of “literary vandalism and bad citizenship.”

Delillo’s response to Will: “I don’t take it seriously, but being called a ‘bad citizen’ is a compliment to a novelist, at least to my mind. That’s exactly what we ought to do. We ought to be bad citizens. We ought to, in the sense that we’re writing against what power represents, and often what government represents, and what the corporation dictates, and what consumer consciousness has come to mean. In that sense, if we’re bad citizen, we’re doing our job.”

One of my favorite quotes from his books #2: “History is the sum total of the things they aren’t telling us.” So true.

One of my favorite passages from his books: “I went out on the terrace. Automobiles were moving across Central Park, ticking red taillights trailing each other  north and west and toward the darkness and the river, headlights coming this way, soft orange, the whistling doormen. The park’s lamplights were dull cold steady silver. I was wasting my life.” From Americana, his first novel.

What he’s said about his first novel: “It’s no accident that my first novel was called Americana. This was a private declaration of independence, a statement of my intention to use the whole picture, the whole culture. America was and is the immigrant’s dream, and as the son of two immigrants I was attracted by the sense of possibility that had drawn my grandparents and parents.”

The above quote was from an interview that was referenced on a great site about the author: Don Delillo’s America. It’s a really good resource about the author.

Where’s a good place to start with Delillo: White Noise. Start there and enjoy it. Read about the book here and here and here.

One last thing, how is “Delillo pronounced?” Like this: Duh Lih Lo.

One last great quote from Don Delillo: “Years ago I use to think it was possible for  novelist to alter the inner life of the culture. Now bomb-makers and gunmen have taken that territory. They make raids on humn consciousness. What writers used to do before we were all incorporated.”

A quick read, easily accomplish able in a day, but I could not dismiss Everyman with the same ease I used while reading the novel.  The tragedy of this novel is the absolute lack of any significant occurrences or events in the main character’s life; his mediocre life allows us to ponder the impression or lack thereof we will leave on this world.  Roth makes a brave decision by allowing this book and its characters to simply exist, instead of imposing a conflict and resolution present in any typical novel.

I appreciated the lack of sentimentality in this novel as well.  Roth does not intend to offer inspirational words of encouragement in how we live and is not apologetic in suggesting our lives might be for null, despite our best efforts.  He is candid in narrating the events of this nameless character’s life, from his funeral, to his deteriorating health, to his failing marriage, but his simple language bears a lot of weight.  Through the rhythm and tone Roth creates in reflecting on the life of this extra ordinary man, the reader must consider:  am I so very different from this man that I pity him for the meaningless life he leads, or is his story so heart-wrenching because I share the same urgency to prove the importance of my existence?

One of the email lists that I subscribe to is Nextbook.org.. They describe themselves as “A new read on Jewish culture,” and the daily emails include book, movie, and music reviews, history, art, food, interesting discussions of religion, podcasts on various topics (today was about the bedtime routine of a 10 month old baby, and a new book and CD of Jewish lullabys), and so forth. I’ve been turned on to some good music, and I often decide to read books that they review.

Today there was an article in which three Jewish authors discussed the most influential Jewish book in their lives, and for the first time, I think I may actually read something by Phillip Roth, who I have always written off as a sexist jerk. Here is what led me to this decision:

Tova Mirvis, author of “The Ladies Auxilliary,” and “The Outside World,” had this to say:

“Sitting across the Seder table from The Fourth Son — the one who doesn’t know how to ask — is another child, he who can’t stop asking. This child is Phillip Roth’s Ozzie, from the short story, The Conversion of The Jews. “If God can do anything, can’t he make a child without intercourse?” Ozzie wants to know. In response, his rabbi and his mother slap him on the face. “You don’t know,” Ozzie screams at his rabbi and soon he’s on the synagogue roof, threatening to jump unless everyone admits that God can make such a child, unless everyone says they believe in Jesus.

When I first read this story, I had to laugh. But it was an anxious laugh. He’s not really going to make the Rabbi say he believes in Jesus, I worried. My own loyalties seemed under attack. Come down from there right now, I wanted to call out. But stay where you are, I whispered. I was only a year out of yeshiva high school, when we had asked questions to waste class time. How do we know God exists? we’d call out. But I really did want to know. I felt the rumbling of questions that went unasked or unanswered. There was no roof accessible, but the classrooms were lined with windows. I sometimes wanted to hike up that yeshiva-sanctioned jean skirt and make my escape. Ozzie comes safely down from the roof, but the questions remain long after the story is over. I still hear his howl against questions that are treated falsely or fearfully. I still feel his desire for teachers, parents, all of us, to admit sometimes that we don’t know.”

This is the link to the full article: http://www.jbooks.com/nfjc/index/IP_What_Jewish_Book.htm. I’ll probably also add Mirvis’s books to my list of things to read since I so enjoyed her comments on Ozzie.

And the book and CD of lullabies (Songs from the Garden of Eden) sounds great too, with songs in Ladino, Arabic, Yiddish, and Hebrew. That’s going on my list of things to suggest the library buy.

1. Hollandaise sauce

2. Phillip Roth

3. Alcohol

4. Equality

(Alexandra / Brooklyn, NY / Age 20)

For whatever reason, I have picked up this book a dozen times by now and never got past the first thirty pages or so.  Precisely the reason why I decided to bring it with me to Germany, I knew since I couldn’t bring that many books, I would eventually be forced to read it.  Perhaps I was just too young or not in the right mood to get into it before, because this attempt went smoothly and even rather quickly.  I wouldn’t say Roth’s book would make any great action movie.  I don’t really know if it would make a great movie in any genre (though Anthony Hopkins did actually try it out).  

The story begins when Coleman Silk’s reputation is soiled by a senseless accusation of racism.  He has been a teacher and dean of Athena University for many years and eventually gives up the fight to restore honor to his name and simply resigns.  However, during (maybe due to) the debacle, his wife dies and he seeks revenge through a tell-all book about his experiences with the college.  For that reason he finds Nathan Zuckerman, an author, and asks him to write his story.  Zuckerman refuses and eventually Silk’s rage simmers away until he forgets about the book entirely; however, they do forge a friendship which lasts only until Silk finds someone else to occupy his time, namely a Faunia Farley.  She is a janitor at the university where he used to teach and half his age.

Even though Nathan Zuckerman was cast aside by his friend, his interest in the professor’s life does not end and he continues to dig deeper into the story until he finds out a bigger secret than the affair with Faunia.  His story is definitely compelling and reads quickly and smoothly; however, I have the problem when I read of really enjoying a story if I don’t like the characters in it.  Despite this being one of these stories, it should not be skipped.

This picture is from the coffee shop where I buy my Arabic coffee every morning across the street from the university. One cup of Arabic coffee costs me $.28 (what exactly are those who buy their lattes from Starbucks–when they should be boycotting–paying now?). I started my day as usual buying my coffee, walking to class, greeting students. But from the very moment I arrived at the coffee shop and for the rest of the day I was confronted by happy Palestinians who were so excited that Barack Obama would bring them change. Like many Americans who should know better, too many Palestinians drank the Koolaid. I was confronted by this phenomenon more than usual as we had another teacher’s strike today and so I spent a large part of the day in the university cafeteria where everyone wanted to share their hope with me. Unfortunately, I cannot share it with them.

I would like to believe. But I can’t. Domestically I would like to believe that America has changed, that it is a post-racist society–as so many journalists were quick to call it today–but I know better. It is clear from Obama’s platform that he does not care about the main issues affecting the things that make African Americans suffer most (though the other African American candidate, who I voted for, Cynthia McKinney takes a strong stand on all of these). I don’t see how electing a Black president is anything other than symbolic. What matters more is the candidate or president’s politics and policies. Where is his position on reparations for slavery? His position on the prison industrial complex? On the tremendous class/race divide in the U.S. that is intricately connected to the poverty of so many African Americans and people of color? Indeed, where is is commitment to the poor or homeless? In this election we saw race baiting of Arab Americans and a rise in Islamophobia. Therefore I find it very difficult to believe that somehow the U.S. magically entered a post-racial epoch. Moreover, aside from American myopia that places Americans and their concerns at the center of the universe, Obama’s foreign policy is really no different than any other. Thus, the euphoria here–as well as other parts of the world as displayed on Al Jazeera–is mind boggling. Only in Kabul, Tehran, and Baghdad did I hear any expression of caution or concern that things would remain the same.

Fortunately, not everyone has lost their minds. Kabobfest posted yet another one of their lovely satiric buttons. And Angry Arab sums up what we can expect from President Obama in this part of the world in contradistinction to the Arab media. One of the most brilliant African American novelists, Ishmael Reed has a rather different take on this Obama-fever sweeping the world. Thankfully, he did not drink the Koolaid:

To many, Martin Luther King’s dream has been realized. He said, ” I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.” Obviously me and my over sixty pals are still lingering in those crooked places and refusing to process the sunlight that is available to everybody else. (Tavis Smiley is our leader). People like us are going to have to adjust to this post race America which resembles a painting by Edward Hicks. A place where Blacks have reached the Promised Land?

What does this promise land look like? This Obamerica? Shortly after Obama is sworn in, the police, instead of subjecting blacks and Hispanics to capricious traffic stops, will only stop them to offer free tickets to the policeman’s ball. Throughout the country, they will address blacks and Hispanics as sir and ma’m. The overcrowding prison problem will end, because all of the blacks and Hispanics who’ve been sent there as a result of prosecutorial and police misconduct – probably half – will be set free. And all of those police who have murdered unarmed blacks only to be acquitted by all-white juries will be retried. Blacks will have the freedom to shop in department stores without being watched.

In the media, all of the black Hispanic and Native American and Asian American journalists, who, according to the Maynard Institute’s media watcher, Richard Prince, are being “shown the door,” will be rehired. The progressive media will spend as much time on the torture of black suspects in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles as they do torture at Gitmo. Blacks will be liberated from the crime, entertainment and sports pages exclusively and appear in other sections. More cerebral sections as scientists, engineers, astronomers. Jonathan Klein and other cable producers will stop managing black opinion so that it doesn’t alienate its white audience and voices other than those of black correspondents from Rev. Moon’s church will be awarded air time. Global warming denier Michelle Bernard will be replaced by Jill Nelson.

Jesse Jackson will be appointed lead editorial writer for The Wall Street Journal. and Al Sharpton will assume duties at The National Review. Rush Limbaugh will inaugurate a series called “Great African American Inventors.” Spike Lee will be invited to run Columbia Pictures and Amy Goodman will take over at NBC. The Newspaper Society of America will apologize for the lynchings and civil disturbances caused by an inflammatory media over the last one hundred or so years. A choked up Rupert Murdoch will read the statement on behalf of his colleagues.

In an emotional press conference, John McWhorter, Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele will admit that they have been tools of the Eugenics movement and donate all of the millions they have received from far right organizations to scholarships for black and Hispanic students. Blacks will have as much access to a good education as those members of Al-Qaeda and Saddam’ s government who studied in the United States. This will end the policy of you educate them, we fight them.

Gertrude Himmlefarb and Lynne Cheney will insist that the works by Hispanic, black and Native Americans be added to the cannon. Cornel West will co-host a show with Dr. Phil. The New York Review of Books will end its white only policy and begin to resemble America. Phillip Roth will admit that all of his novels are autobiographical. Several prominent abstract expressionists will confess that they can’t draw.

All of the blacks and Hispanics who have been driven out of New York, Oakland, and San Francisco, as a result of the policies of ethnic cleansing, advocated by Jerry Brown, Giuliani and Newsom, will be invited to return. The banks that aimed toxic mortgage loans to blacks and Hispanics, who would have qualified for conventional loans had they been white, will halt the foreclosure process and renegotiate these loans. CEOs on Wall Street will forego bonuses and golden parachutes. Sales conferences will be held at Day’s Inn. For rent signs will go up on K street. The American Enterprise Institute will close its doors.

“Obama will call for an end to warfare by air so that these forces will at least look their victims in the eye before murdering them.”

The right will stop using worn out phrases like “political correctness,” and “victimization” and hire Sean “Puffy” Combs to provide them with some hip language.

An Obama administration will launch the Obama doctrine, which will advocate friendly aggression and soft diplomacy in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and other global spots where American forces are killing people. These trouble spots will be inundated with artists, writers, dancers and musicians, engineers, doctors and people who speak their languages.

American students will be required to lean an Asian and African languages well as a western one. He will call for an end to warfare by air so that these forces will at least look their victims in the eye before murdering them. No more drones. Missiles. Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff will address him as Mr, President, both in private and in public. The white house, haunted by the ghosts of the Indian fighters and slave owners and KKK sympathizers like Woodrow Wilson, who once ruled from there, will be demolished and the first family will reside in a St. Louis condo as the country seeks a fresh start. Cindy McCain will sell her wardrobe and donate the proceeds to rebuilding New Orleans’ 9th ward. Any one outfit that she wears on a given day would help to rebuild a block. John McCain will acknowledge the black members of his family whom he has snubbed up to now. Obama critic Governor Schwarzenegger will be among the new president’s well wishers. He will offer to improve president Obama’s physique by sending him some steroids from his private stash. And, by the way, doesn’t an effort to put some meat on somebody’s bones begin at home?

A big step toward a green America would be to return the land that was stolen from Native Americans. (The southwest will be returned to Mexico).

And as a gesture to this new Era of Good Feeling, George Bush, Condi Rice, Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, Judith Miller, Osama Bin Laden and Jonathan Klein will turn themselves in at the Hague.

By way of contrast, Michael Eric Dyson seems to believe that this election could signal a post-racist society (re-read Reed’s piece if you believe that…):

Contrary to many critics, his election does not, nor should it, herald a post-racial future. But it may help usher in a post-racist future. A post-racial outlook seeks to delete crucial strands of our identity; a post-racist outlook seeks to delete oppression that rests on hate and fear, that exploits cultural and political vulnerability. Obama need not cease being a black man to effectively govern, but America must overcome its brutal racist past to permit his gifts, and those of other blacks, to shine.

Our belief in Obama must become contagious; it must spread and become a belief in other blacks who have been quarantined in racial stereotype. Regarding Obama as an exceptional black man — when he is in fact an exceptional American — hampers our whole nation’s desire to clear the path to success for more like him. Obama is not the first black American capable of being president; he’s the first black American who got the chance to prove it.

We should not be seduced by the notion that Obama’s presidency signals the end of racism, the civil rights movement, the struggle for black equality or the careers of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. A President Obama would not have come to be without the groundbreaking efforts of Shirley Chisholm, and especially Jackson. Obama is able to be cool and calm because leaders like Sharpton, at least in the past, got angry.

Or consider Shelby Steele’s assessment (referenced in Reed’s article above):

Does his victory mean that America is now officially beyond racism? Does it finally complete the work of the civil rights movement so that racism is at last dismissible as an explanation of black difficulty? Can the good Revs. Jackson and Sharpton now safely retire to the seashore? Will the Obama victory dispel the twin stigmas that have tormented black and white Americans for so long — that blacks are inherently inferior and whites inherently racist? Doesn’t a black in the Oval Office put the lie to both black inferiority and white racism? Doesn’t it imply a “post-racial” America? And shouldn’t those of us — white and black — who did not vote for Mr. Obama take pride in what his victory says about our culture even as we mourn our political loss?

Answering no to such questions is like saying no to any idealism; it seems callow. How could a decent person not hope for all these possibilities, or not give America credit for electing its first black president? And yet an element of Barack Obama’s success was always his use of the idealism implied in these questions as political muscle. His talent was to project an idealized vision of a post-racial America — and then to have that vision define political decency. Thus, a failure to support Obama politically implied a failure of decency.

Also, compare Reed’s witty and accurate portrayal of what America and the world will decidedly NOT look like with a President Obama with some of these naive reports about America’s so-called post-racial society–the first one is from a story quoting President Bush if that is any indication:

“They showed a watching world the vitality of America’s democracy, and the strides we have made towards a more perfect union.

“They chose a president whose journey represents a triumph of the American story – a testament to hard work, optimism, and faith in the enduring promise of our nation.

“Many of our citizens thought they would never live to see that day.

“This moment is especially uplifting for a generation of Americans who witnessed the struggle for civil rights with their own eyes – and four decades later see the dream fulfilled.”

Even during the darkest hours of his presidential campaign, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois held on to his improbable, unshakable conviction that America was ready to step across the color line. On Tuesday, America leaped.

Obama Is Elected President as Racial Barrier Falls

We’ve come a long, long way: With Barack Obama’s election, no longer is a black candidate the champion of a minority. He has triumphed as the choice of a majority

In this way, Obama redefined the country for us, but our responses involved generational differences. For younger people, white and black, his vision seemed entirely straightforward. It is the country they already know, and they expressed great enthusiasm. Finally, they said, a politician who recognizes the racial differences that are part of their lives and no big deal. For young blacks and other minorities, Obama’s place at the pinnacle of official power lifts a coarse cloak that has blanketed their lives and dreams–the stultifying burden of being judged, whether they succeed or fail, on the basis of their race.

Some are more cautious in their analysis, indicating the fact that there is still a racial divide in the U.S.:

Analysts from both parties hailed Obama’s victory as a “milestone” in the troubled and often violent history of U.S. race relations given widespread scepticism as recently as six months ago that a black man — Obama is actually biracial — could be elected president.

Obama did not get as many white votes as Mccain, the split being 55-43 percent in Mccain’s favor. But some 95 percent of black voters, who turned out in unprecedented numbers, voted for Obama.

There is another paradox about the world’s view of the election of Mr. Obama: many who are quick to condemn the United States for its racist past and now congratulate it for a milestone fail to acknowledge the same problem in their own societies, and so do not see how this election could offer them any lessons about themselves.

To be sure, if Obama wins, it will not mean the end of racism. Prepare for a backlash. And prepare for a generalized sentiment in the white population that there no longer is any need for affirmative action once a black man sits in the Oval Office.

And to be sure, if Obama wins, it will not mean the end of injustice in America.

No Obama’s win will not only not mean an end of injustice in the U.S. It also will not mean an end of injustice in the world. For we can expect more of the same over the last four years. Rania told me this morning she had hoped McCain had one. I agree. If McCain had won the world would still have an American president in power who is obviously vying for American empire and hegemony. With Obama it may look more like Clinton. For the war in Iraq–and the bombings in Sudan for that matter and many covert operations around the globe–continued unabated throughout the Clinton administration in the form of sanctions and continued air strikes. We may not have had troops on the ground, but there was decidedly a war in terms of tremendous civilian casualties. With a Bush or McCain administration the racism in America is more obvious, too. To be sure, it exists under all American presidents and will continue under Obama, but when it is obvious it makes it easier to fight.

We can expect more of the same here. The same over the past eight years and the same as literally today. With the breaking of a truce by an Israeli invasion of Gaza overnight, of course supported by U.S. weapons, with the assault on an Afghan wedding today, with increasing attacks in Iraq (my oh my that surge is a-workin’!), with the continued sonic booms from Israeli Terrorist Forces (ITF) that went on all day over Nablus. These are the modes of racism that the U.S. is complicit in here in the Middle East:

After a wave of bombings yesterday has not abated today. Where at least 11 people were killed and 26 wounded in two separate blasts–one in a car park in eastern Baghdad, the other on a roadside in northern Baghdad.

A four-month ceasefire between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza was in jeopardy today after Israeli troops killed six Hamas gunmen in a raid into the territory.

Hamas responded by firing a wave of rockets into southern Israel, although no one was injured. The violence represented the most serious break in a ceasefire agreed in mid-June, yet both sides suggested they wanted to return to atmosphere of calm.

Israeli troops crossed into the Gaza Strip late last night near the town of Deir al-Balah. The Israeli military said the target of the raid was a tunnel that they said Hamas was planning to use to capture Israeli soldiers positioned on the border fence 250m away. Four Israeli soldiers were injured in the operation, two moderately and two lightly, the military said.

One Hamas gunman was killed and Palestinians launched a volley of mortars at the Israeli military. An Israeli air strike then killed five more Hamas fighters. In response, Hamas launched 35 rockets into southern Israel, one reaching the city of Ashkelon.

There were also house demolitions today in Al Quds by the ITF:

The Israeli military wounded on Wednesday 12 Palestinian residents and detained several others as the residents defied an Israeli army bulldozing of two homes and weddings hall in the occupied east Jerusalem.

The demolition took place in the Shu’fat refugee camp in the eastern outskirts of the occupied city, as crowds of angry inhabitants attempted to prevent the demolition.

Israeli soldiers, accompanying the bulldozers, clashed with the residents, causing the injury of 12 and the arrest of several others, media sources and witnesses reported.

In Nablus, where I live, last month saw 40 Palestinian political prisoners kidnapped according to a report released today:

Israeli arrests in the northern West Bank’s Nablus reached 40 during the month of October as invasions continued nearly daily.

The military checkpoints surrounding the city were also the scene of frequent arrests this month including 16 year old Ibrahim and an unidentified 17 year old accused of carrying an explosive at Huwara. Mosques were also raided, along with Nablus Governorate villages.

I wish i could believe in the hope that many Americans are feeling today. I wish I could imagine an American president changing the society–mostly in ways that are in line with Cynthia McKinney or Ralph Nader. But I just can’t. This in spite of the glaring racism of Israeli society (they’ve learned well from the Americans):

No declaration of support and no promising statements can diminish the fear many Israelis’ have of U.S president – elect Barak Obama.

An elderly woman of Iraqi descent tells her daughter: “I saw them dancing. They’re like the Arabs.” The daughter replies: “I know – he’ll support the Palestinians.”

“This is the end of us. He will take away our military foreign aid grants,” another man states. These recent responses to Barak Obama’s election are typical of many Israelis.

These people identify Obama, black and bearing Hussein as a middle name, as a supporter of the oppressed in Third World countries, and fear that he will automatically side with the Palestinians.

So I don’t believe in change. Not now. Not until I see it with my own eyes. Call me cynical. Maybe I am. But I see no signs of this election meaning anything for the end of racism in the U.S. nor the end of America’s racism and imperialism directed against the rest of the world. Perhaps what is most appalling and disappointing to me with this election and why I found it so deeply upsetting is the way in which this euphoria made smart people make stupid choices, made leftists and radicals go into hiding. I want change I can believe in, too. I want a democratic electoral system that doesn’t thwart the ambitions of independent or third-party candidates rather than the usual suspects who hinder the democratic process so we cannot even hear them in the debate or read how they fared in the election. I want an end to racism AND imperialism, too. But I need evidence first that there is actually someone in power who is committed to those goals. And I don’t see it in a coward like Obama who showed his true colors when he refused to defend Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and Rashid Khalidi. I would have much preferred any of the latter three running for president. Now that might be change I can believe in.

Jason Horowitz | New York Observer | Friday, October 31, 2008

Erica Jong, 1976.

It seems that the final days of the presidential campaign have made Erica Jong and her friends more than a little anxious.

A few days ago, Jong, the author and self-described feminist, gave an interview to the Italian daily Corriere della Sera, the choicest bits of which were brought to my attention by the reliably sharp-eyed Christian Rocca, the U.S. correspondent of Il Foglio, who published excerpts on his Camillo blog. Basically, Jong says her fear that Obama might lose the election has developed into an “obsession. A paralyzing terror. An anxious fever that keeps you awake at night.” She also says that her friends Jane Fonda and Naomi Wolf are extremely worried that Obama will be sabotaged by Republican dirty tricks, and that if an Obama loss indeed comes to pass, the result will be a second American Civil War.

Here’s a translation of Jong’s more spirited quotes to the Milan-based Corriere, as selected by Rocca.

“The record shows that voting machines in America are rigged.”

“My friends Ken Follett and Susan Cheever are extremely worried. Naomi Wolf calls me every day. Yesterday, Jane Fonda sent me an email to tell me that she cried all night and can’t cure her ailing back for all the stress that has reduces her to a bundle of nerves.”

“My back is also suffering from spasms, so much so that I had to see an acupuncturist and get prescriptions for Valium.”

“After having stolen the last two elections, the Republican Mafia…”

“If Obama loses it will spark the second American Civil War. Blood will run in the streets, believe me. And it’s not a coincidence that President Bush recalled soldiers from Iraq for Dick Cheney to lead against American citizens in the streets.”

“Bush has transformed America into a police state, from torture to the imprisonment of reporters, to the Patriot Act.”

 

She also laments that not all of America’s men of letters share her devotion to Obama.

“Tom Wolfe and John Updike are men of the right and Philip Roth is at this point a hermit who leads a monastic life in Connecticut, far from everything and everybody.”

Luckily, she said there is her and Michael Chabon, who, she says, have “taken the place of Susan Sontag and Norman Mailer respectively.”

They have the same political sensibilities, she said, but a better “sense of humor.”

Watching an interview with author Phillip Roth in which he spoke on the grim future of books and the written word in general, I thought heavily on the fate of one of my true loves.  But I had trouble fretting over where books will be in a couple of decades.  The fact that Roth’s outlook was overly pessimistic only kindled faith in me that books, always a niche-dweller of popularity, will nevertheless eke out a continued existence among its devotees, as few as they may be.  Books may one day (if not already) become to DVDs, iPods, and Jerry Bruckheimer films what vinyl is to CDs and digital kilobytes.

Continuing on this path of thought, I decided that a writer still holds a vital role in our society (which is no surprise) and that he will continue to do so for mankind’s entire course (which may or may not be).  Things can be said in books that cannot ever be lighted upon in movies or music or MTV.  In fact, books are the one medium form that is truly transsensatory.  You ingest it visually as you would a painting or television screen, but given an able writer and willing reader, what is taken in is enhanced, dwelled upon, and reimagined according to the reader’s sensibilities.  Some would argue that painting can achieve similar effects, but I would place the story above it due to its versatility–writing has come closer to faithfully treating painting and its effects than vice versa.

All this led to other conclusions that I may one day relate here if I can remember them.  But for now, it leaves me wondering about this blog itself–with no readers as of yet and no indication that there will ever be any aside from a few half-interested friends and family members, what is the point? 

The point, I think, is that it represents the power of the written word on a very minimal scale.  I can accomplish a greater understanding of all that is within and without myself by trying (usually in vain) to adequately translate it into words than I can in any other way.  The ramblings of this blog, though they may never be seen by anyone else (I’m feeling incredibly self conscious as I write those words), are important to at least one.  They are not important in any greater, human sense of the word, but are the necessary exhaust of a drive.  A writer’s got to write. 

Hace un mes aproximadamente que empecé un máster, y ya han caído las primeras víctimas: la tele, el blog y la lectura (que no sean los casos del máster)

Como no sé cuando volveré a tener tiempo para leer lo que leen las personas normales, he decidido poneros los libros que me gustaría leer, a ver si os animáis, los leeis y me contáis que tal:

	Título: Sale el espectro
	Autor: Phillip Roth
	Editorial: Mondadori

	Título: Out
	Autor: Natsuko Kirino
	Editorial: Emecé

	Título: Chesil Beach
	Autor: Ian McEwan
	Editorial: Anagrama

Artwork by Guy Haley – title unknown

“We wear the mask that grins and lies,
It hides our cheeks and shades our eyes –
This debt we pay to human guile;
With torn and bleeding hearts we smile
And mouth with myriad subtleties….”
- Paul Laurence Dunbar, We Wear the Mask

“It’s all impersonation–in the absence of a self, one impersonates selves, and after a while impersonates best the self that best gets one through.”

“The treacherous imagination is everybody’s maker—we are all the invention of each other, everybody a conjuration conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other’s authors.”
-Phillip Roth, The Counterlife

I have this thing with assumptions: I hate them. There’s really not much you can do about them though. It’s just that some people make assumptions far too much and place far too much confidence in them — that’s what can be annoying. In many cases, the less you give people to go on, the bigger the leaps they make about you. But of course, assumptions are what we do. We all do it to varying degrees. We all hate them, yet we all make them.

I think assumptions are part of the reason why it’s so hard to really know someone these days. And it doesn’t help that people are more insecure than ever — insecurity is one of the defining characteristics of our post-modern condition, no? So we create multiple selves for ourselves, choosing a mask for each aspect of our lives.

Truth is relative — that is also one of the epiphanies of post-modernism: the most blatant of lies can carry more meaning than the starkest of truths; it can be a more profound “truth” than any real truth could have been. And this “truth” can help us get closer to finding and broadening the beautiful spectrum of our identity as humans…and can hurl us ten steps backwards by also serving to fracture and refract it even more.

In this age of personal blogs, myspace pages, user profiles, and polished, carefully designed resumes, we are always busy creating our various fictions that make up our identities, hoping against hope that it is the poignantly true type of fiction. So we create this fiction — some complete fiction, a lot of non-fiction, and much more a combination — for the world to read.

Boy, do people read. They read into everything we say or convey through our actions and expressions. So it’s probably understandable why we create these fictions for ourselves. People are constantly reading and counter-reading each other, and conclusions, no matter if they are true or not, are reached. Because, fuck, truth doesn’t matter. It’s the essence that’s of utmost importance. And really, it’s so much more intriguing when a lie or a series of untruths are able to convey a concrete, undeniable truth. (Perhaps we have fallen so in love with doing this that now we only get mostly flat, dull, boring untruths that don’t mean anything.)

We not only create fiction for ourselves but we also create fiction for those around us in our lives. And the conclusions we draw from our palette of suppositions — with their many nuances and varying shades and colors of truth, emotion, envy, love mixed in — are what we use to paint the people who surround our lives as well.

And it looks like I am in the same boat as all the people I get annoyed by — all the people who misread me, misinterpret me, and create their own fiction about me; all those people who I in turn misread and misinterpret, sometimes out of spite; and my self, who misreads and misinterprets me as much as the worst of them. Who am I? I have no clue really. I guess I’m writing my own fiction for me to read and say, “Ah, yes, this is me. I’ve found myself.” This of course is different from the fiction that I consciously and unconsciously write for everyone else to see. That fiction is the one that provides the hard covers for me to hide my “true fiction” within. And who knows how many other fictions are hiding in those? After a while, you can’t tell which is which.

We’re all writers, then we’re actors, in a continuous, alternating pattern, and life is just a matter of finding the best scripts to act out in the most convincing fashion. Ideally, that script would come from yourself, but it could come from a script someone else makes for you.

The idea of a “true identity” may only be an unreachable mirage of an ideal, only possible in a work of fiction.

“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…”
-Shakespeare, As You Like It

Songs of the Day:

Fugees – “The Mask”
Radiohead – “Fitter Happier”
Radiohead – “Karma Police”
Belle and Sebastian – “Storytelling”

__________________________

“….We smile, but oh great Christ, our cries
To Thee from tortured souls arise.
We sing, but oh the clay is vile
Beneath our feet, and long the mile;
But let the world dream otherwise,
We wear the mask!”

Join Ashley Olsen, Marc Jacobs, Neil Patrick Harris and us in having a Happy Halloween!

And without further ado, here’s your roundup of links!

Britney did an interview with Ryan Seacrest this morning… she seems so personally uninspired it’s unreal.

Wondering what the scariest music videos are? Wonder no more…

The Guardian pays tribute to their columnist Dina Rabinovitch, who sadly lost her battle with Breast Cancer on Tuesday.

Banksy is unmasked...

Eli Roth (shiver), Tarantino and Sam Raimi can teach YOU how to survive a zombie attack. Brilliant.

Slate rounds up a few reads for these cold ol’ winter nights.

Sydney’s going to Broadway… unfortunately not for a musical remake of Alias.

The New Yorker talks through the beautiful work of Frida Kahlo and talks to David Simon about The Wire.

The Northwest Herald talks to Tad Kubler, the lead guitarist of poetic god-rockers The Hold Steady.

Stylus throws the first list punch with it’s fifty favourite records of the year. Already.

Harp talks to the wonderful, effervescent, cheeky, charming and utter genius Bjork.

I’m not usually much for memes, but this one felt like a challenge, and  I’m up for that. (via Litlove)

List some of your favorite words:

ineluctable, luminescent, snarky, meticulous, snarl, cartography, nefarious, hibachi, discombobulated, moxie, savvy, aardvark.

I tend to like the rhythm of hyphenated adjectives, too: cappuccino-soaked, travel-related, half-baked, mind-numbing.

What’s your favorite maxim or proverb?

I get annoyed by maxims or proverbs. Too buttoned-up and old fashioned.

What’s your favorite quotation?

I don’t really have a favorite quotation. Some people keep stuff like that taped to their computers and so on, for inspiration, but I don’t.

What’s your favorite first line of a novel?

I have to say that this is not something I think about much. First paragraphs, I think about. First lines, for some reason, I don’t. (My favorite first paragraphs, by the way, are probably those in Howard Norman’s The Bird Artist, and in Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.)

But after going through every novel I could find in my house, I came up with the first line of Jeffery Eugenides’ Middlesex:

I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.

Give an example of a piece of description that’s really pleased you in your reading lately:

There were tons in Anthony Doerr’s About Grace …

I have a couple of passages from books I’ve read that I’ve bothered to copy down, and I still think they are amazing. There are several of them in Tim O’Brien’s “The Things They Carried,” paragraphs in which details of what the soldiers carried catch my breath. There are passages in Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye that have the same effect, although I can’t find my copy right now to highlight them.

One nice passage (though not necessarily a descriptive one) that I’ve written in an old notebook is this:

We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves. I wish for all this to be marked on my body when I am dead. I believe in such cartography – to be marked by nature, not just to label ourselves on a map like the names of rich men and women on buildings. We are communal histories, communal books. We are not owned or monogamous in our taste or experience. All I desired was to walk upon such an earth that had no maps.
(The English Patient, p. 261)

Which five writers do you particularly admire for their use of language?

I think five is too few! Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje, Anthony Doerr, Annie Proulx, Pico Iyer, Joan Didion, Kiran Desai, Susan Orlean, and much as I hate to admit it, Paul Theroux. There are so many.

And are there writers whose style you really dislike?

It’s really hard to separate a style I dislike from authors I dislike in general. The content can overwhelm me to the point that style becomes much less relevant. For example, Phillip Roth. For example, Malcolm Gladwell. Also, I tend to be annoyed by writing that is too obscured by its own style and drive for substance. For example: Sven Birkerts. For example: Zadie Smith. Or too simplified and/or self-conscious: Like many writings that have come out of the McSweeney’s crowd.

What’s the key to really fine writing, in your opinion?

Imagery, rhythm, clarity, variation in sentence lengths. You should be able to read it out loud and not stumble.