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Three Good Things: Dour Edition

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 1) On Nobel Laureate Imre Kertesz's recent memoir Dossier K:

What all of this adds up to is very loosely a memoir, but it might be better described as an energetic and thoughtful introduction (or companion) to Kertesz’s other books. Kertesz, for his part, seems to intend “Dossier K.” as a kind of catchall interview that will save him not simply from having to sit for more interviews, but also from having the complexity of his life’s experiences and ideas reduced by others to sound bites. You hear echoes of this concern toward the end of “Dossier K.,” in his comments on the social realities of being a Holocaust survivor:

“It is painful to carry the brand of surviving for some unaccountable reason. You remained here so you could spread the Auschwitz myth; you remained here as a sort of freak. You are invited to attend anniversaries; your irresolute face is video-recorded, your faltering voice, you hardly notice that you’ve become a kitsch supporting character in a fraudulent narrative, and you sell for peanuts your own story, which bit by bit you yourself understand least of all.”

For more, see the New York Times . . .

 

2) Prescient as ever, George Orwell in a letter from 1944:

The Art of Reading: Havisham Hour

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Each of us reads for different reasons. I daresay even when our reasons are said to be the same – e.g., “distraction,” “education,” “entertainment,” etc. – we’re usually describing something unspeakably and maybe unintentionally personal.  There is an art to reading, and it creates as much as (perhaps more than) it consumes. In this series of posts, we highlight people who take this notion to heart.

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The Havisham Hour

 

 

Julio Panisello, the artist behind "The Havisham Hour," describes his fascinating project:

"Each day I read a single page of [Charles Dickens's The Great Expectations]. After reading the page I use it as format to create artwork inspired by the words in it. I then scan the sketched page and publish it, along with a brief journal entry, exactly at 8:40 AM each day, on my local time, the time in the novel when Miss Havisham receives a letter on her wedding day announcing her groom is not showing up.

The project started January 7th, 2013 and it will end June 12th, 2014: 521 days, 521 pages, 521 sketches."

The execution of his idea is as stellar as the idea itself. Do yourself a favor and follow along

 

The Newspaper of Record -- but for whom?

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In recent months the so-called "Newspaper of Record," the New York Times, has come under increasing fire for what its accusers consider a stark gender imbalance. (Though, as the annual VIDA count shows, it is far from alone in this respect. I'm looking at you New York Review of Books.)

Reasonable people, of course, are free to disagree about what this imbalance means . . . but, boy, the daily updates at the site "Who Writes for the New York Times" don't look pretty. See for yourself.

Three Good Things: On Narration

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1) There's a good chance you've not heard of or read Gary Lutz. This says nothing about you, though, and everything about his apparent allergy to self-promotion. Lutz's books are thin and too often tend to hide beside or slip behind their larger cousins. But, oh, what's packed inside! When we're not breathlessly awaiting our shipment of his recently re-released underground classic, Partial List of People to Bleach, we're re-reading books of his like The Divorcer. And then sometimes we're bowled over by something unexpected. Something like, say, a phenomenal, insightful interview with Blake Butler in, of all places, Vice. It's a pretty fabulous entryway into his thinking and style.

From my way of looking at things—and I have never been much of a looker—a word, enlarged to 24-point type (though I sometimes allow myself to go far larger, and I’m partial to the rondures of the Cambria font), presents itself to the eye as something hulky, just another lump of matter. The more colossal you get a word, the easier the meaning can seep out of the hollows and bowls and dimples of the letters. Sometimes, though, you have to scoop it out, and that can slow you down a bit. You’re left, ultimately, with something bony-looking and gutted, and you listen to the air whistling through the cavities, and something eventually comes over you: you want to fill those holes, pack them full, with something else, usually the plentisome slops and slimes from your own psyche. You’ve got to get something discrepant going on inside of the word. Then that word, with a louche sort of air about it now, and with a shifted import to it, can present itself to another word and start something swackingly unnatural. 

 

2) It probably goes without saying, and resist it all we like, but life is changing. Of course, not only is it changing, as life becomes more technologically mediated our perception changes as well. What's more, so do the stories we tell about the life we see and experience. It can all be quite dizzying. Fortunately, there are some very smart, creative people thinking about such things amidst the vertigo. frieze Magazine sat down with a few of them to talk about the effect of technological advances on our narrative structures.

We All Need a Little Pynchon in Our Lives

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What is to be made of the book trailer for Thomas Pynchon's dazzling new novel, Bleeding Edge (out September 17th -- reserve your copy today!)? Quirky on the same level as the book? Pynchon & co. trolling the very idea of a book trailer? Is it intentionally or unintentionally bad? Caught somewhere in between? Does it stumble on the sublime? 

Like some of Pynchon's best work, joke and mystery are indistinguishable. You're either in on it or not.  

 

Bleeding Edge book trailer from The Penguin Press on Vimeo.

"When all the others were away at Mass" -- RIP, Seamus Heaney

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We lost one of our great poetic voices this week when Seamus Heaney died following a short illness. Described by the poet Robert Lowell as the "most important Irish poet since Yeats," Heaney's profoundly deep and human reflections on life and memory spoke to -- and will continue speaking to -- untold numbers.

In honor and memory of Heaney, here are a few examples of him reading some of our favorites.

1) Sonnet 3, from Clearances (1986)

 

 

2) "Scaffolding," from Death of a Naturalist (1966)

 



I'm also quite fond of his lyrical reading of that most musical of his poems, "Deor," posted at Poets Out Loud.

Authors in the News: William Vollmann

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William T. Vollmann, author of the recently re-released (and utterly fabulous!) An Afghanistan Picture Show, was interviewed on NPR last week. It is not to be missed. He discusses in particular his recent Harper’s article [subscription needed], in which he details what he learned when he gained access to his FBI file: e.g., that he was on different occasions suspected of being the Unabomber and/or anthrax mailer, and deemed to have in his possession a flamethrower. Needless to say, the interview is a doozy.

Three Good Things: Media Phenoms

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1) Oh, this is all sorts of fabulous: "In 1969 Norman Mailer ran for mayor of New York. He called for the city’s secession from the State of New York to become the 51st state; a ban on private cars in Manhattan; free public bicycles; devolution of powers over policing, education, housing and welfare to neighbourhood authorities; a casino on Coney Island or Roosevelt Island to generate tax revenue; and something called ‘Sweet Sundays’, one day each month on which all mechanical transportation, including lifts, would be banned. His fliers were apocalyptic: NEW YORK GETS AN IMAGINATION – OR IT DIES! His slogan was 'No More Bullshit.'" (For more, see the London Review of Books . . . )

 

2) Resistance is futile in the face of the newest phenomenon taking the internet by storm. For who can can deny the power of the BookShelfie?

 

3) Same story with this video of poet Neil Hilborn performing his poem "OCD." No matter your personal feelings about slam poetry, with four million views and counting Hilborn's description of falling in love and obsessive-compulsive disorder has rightfully captured our imagination and attention.

 

 

RIP, Elmore Leonard

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Like a good many of you, we at Diesel were supremely saddened to hear the news of Elmore Leonard's death this week. Leonard is a quintessential American treasure whose work will, we are certain, continue to be read and adored.

One of the masters of taut, economical storytelling, Leonard was also a master at crafting the perfect opening line. Alex Belth and his friends at The Stacks blog have a wonderful compilation of some of his greatest.

A few of my favorites from their list: 

"The war began the first Saturday in June 1931, when Mr. Baylor sent a boy up to Son Martin's place to tell him they were coming to raid his still."—The Moonshine War (1969)
"This morning they were here for the melons: about sixty of them waiting patiently by the two stake trucks and the old blue-painted school bus."—Mr. Majestyk (1974)
"The gentleman from Harper's Weekly, who didn't know mesquite beans from goat shit, looked up from his reference collection of back issues and said, 'I've got it!'"—Gunsights (1979)
"Every time they got a call from the leper hospital to pick up a body Jack Delaney would feel himself coming down with the flu or something."—Bandits (1987)
"Chris Mankowski's last day on the job, two in the afternoon, two hours to go, he got a call to dispose of a bomb."—Freaky Deaky (1988)
"Foley had never seen a prison where you could walk right up to the fence without getting shot."—Out of Sight (1996)

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