June 30, 2004

Bipolar

Comic fans everywhere, rejoice! Tomer and Assaf Hanuka's Bipolar is unlike most other comics currently being read. There aren't any spandex-clad superheroes fighting crime, or sullen anti-heroes saving the world from destruction. Instead, Bipolar brings us into the brothers' sometimes diametrically opposed worlds.

The first section, written and illustrated by Tomer Hanuka, is essentially a series of vignettes characterized by philosophical musings. Many of the panels show the action without any dialogue, relying on visual language only to convey Tomer Hanuka's disjointed vision of a life where neglect and cruelty are ever-present, and where instances of kindness and humanity are almost accidental.

The best part about the series, though, is the second section, titled Pizza Kamikaze. Adapted from a story by Etgar Keret and illustrated by Assaf Hanuka, Kamikaze centers around Mordi, a man who commits suicide after a breakup with his girlfriend and finds himself in an afterworld populated solely by other people who have ended their lives. The people still bear the marks of their death: slit wrists, gun shot wounds, wrinkles from drowning. Everyone is mostly alone here, but sometimes entire families are unexpectedly re-united. Mordi soon learns that his lost love has recently arrived to this world. He embarks on a journey to find her. The dark artwork beautifully helps establish the subtle presence of death, but the story isn't without humor. Kurt Cobain makes a brief appearance, for instance, and people complain that he won't stop bitching because everything in this after-world reminds him of a song he wrote.

Keret and Hanuka join the likes of Takehiko Inoue ,Neil Gaiman, and Michael Chabon in creating work that showcases how the comic media can be read as literary fiction. If a publisher decides to release Pizzeria Kamikaze in graphic novel form, I'll be first in line.

Bipolar isn't available at Powells.com or Amazon.com, but you can purchase it at Mars Import.

June 29, 2004

La Caduta di Roma

Matt Thompson reports that the NY Times has written 17,000 words on Paris Hilton matters and only 10,000 on the catastrophe currently unfolding in Darfur, Sudan. Link via Gawker.

Literature in Israeli Classrooms

The curriculum still being used for Arabic literature in Arab-area high schools in Israel features poets like the Syrian Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said) and the Palestinian Mahmoud Darwish. But these poets were removed from the anthologies used in the classroom on instruction of the curriculum committee's sole Jewish member, who felt that some of those works could "create an ill spirit." However, anthologies used by students in Jewish high schools do contain poetry from Darwish, for instance, along with the work of novelists like Naguib Mahfouz and Tawfiq Al-Hakim. So why the discrepancy?

Dr. Mahmud Abu Fanni, the Education Ministry's veteran supervisor of Arabic studies in the Arab sector, admits that some of the works easily taught to Jewish students would be very difficult to include in the Arab schools' curriculum. However, he claims that "this time we will not be able to run from Mahmoud Darwish and Samih al-Kassem. It simply isn't possible." Abu Fanni is referring to the work of a committee (of which he is the coordinator) that has spent the last two years formulating a new Arab literature curriculum. The committee intends to demand that Arab literature, currently included within Arabic language studies, be recognized as a separate, two-credit subject of study for Arab high schools.

There is more to this story of who teaches what to whom in this Ha'aretz article by Omer Barak, though the why isn't fully addressed.

Fahrenheit 9/11 for Joe Schmo

There's been a lot of talk on the net about people's reactions to Fahrenheit 9/11, about how much money it made, and about how factual it was. There was even discussion about how the movie may have affected sales of anti-Bush books. But I was wondering how much the movie will really affect the average, undecided American.

Well, the average American doesn't read books, doesn't watch documentaries at theatres, and doesn't vote. So when Joe Schmo sees this movie, will he side with Moore and want to vote the current administration out of office? Or will he agree with people like Hitch that the movie is so much "liberal propaganda" and vote for Bush?

So I went with an average american who subscribes to the above three "doesn'ts". While in line, I asked whether or not he was going to vote in the next election. "I really don't know, I wasn't planning on it." And let's just say that his opinion didn't change after watching the movie. Maybe his answer would have been different if Arnold was running for President.

A depressing experiment. I know my own Joe Schmo is only one data point, so for now I'll hold my judgment until after the election, and try to keep the faith.

How Long Before the Implants?

The cult of the author's image continues, with a fashion article about a new author and the makeover she undergoes, complete with a description of what clothes she picks for 'taking meetings.' Yes, there is a Zadie Smith reference. Ugh.

Frankfurt Book Fair News

Preparations for the Frankfurt Book Fair, where the Arab World will be a guest of honor, are in full swing, though the organizers seem to be running into the usual difficulties.

The choice to feature the Arab world at the book fair was interesting but inherently difficult, organizers say -- if only because so many different countries are involved. Despite common roots, the region is plagued by unresolved, divisive political issues, such as the Near East conflict and the Iraq war.

And Sonallah Ibrahim, never one to shun controversy, had this to say:

"Would a German author bother worrying about a book fair when Dresden is being bombed?" wondered Egyptian novelist Sonallah Ibrahim.

Unfortunately, Morocco will be absent from the fair, which is a bloody shame because I think its literature is one of the finest in the region and it should be made more available in the West (I don't know of any Western markets, besides France, where Moroccan authors can sell.) Here in the U.S., I believe the best-selling book by a Moroccan author is the Oprah-selected memoir by Malika Oufkir, so we're still at the stage of the sensational.
Link from the Complete Review.

June 28, 2004

On the List: Lose Weight, Get Rid of Bush

Of the fifteen most borrowed books in libraries in America, six are non-fiction volumes devoted to the Shrub and how he's misled or mismanaged the nation, three are diet books, and the rest are memoirs or self-help. There is not a single novel on the list.
Link found at the Christian Science Monitor.

Lucky Londoners

As a tribute to the late Edward Said, the London Review of Books has invited the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra to perform in London. The orchestra was founded by Said and Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim. For details on the concert, go here.

Maps for Lost Lovers

Kamila Shamsie reviews Nadeem Aslam's Maps for Lost Lovers, which is set in the English town of Dasht-e-Tanhaii.

The English town of Dasht-e-Tanhaii? It sounds more like something out of a fairytale than a place off the M4. But no, it is a town with a large community of Pakistani migrants who have renamed their new home Dasht-e-Tanhaii: The Wilderness of Loneliness or The Desert of Solitude.

Shamsie gives the book a very enthusiastic review, so it may well be worth checking out.

What's Your Excuse?

The July/August issue of Poets & Writers features a cover story about Samina Ali. Ali had already written a draft of Madras on Rainy Days when, twenty minutes after delivering her first baby, she suffered a grand mal seizure, went into a coma for seven days, had two brain hemorrhages, kidney and liver failures, pulmonary edema, and cerebral edema. She recovered from all this to finish her book. Ok, so now may be a good time to scratch off any excuses you may have.

June 27, 2004

On the "Multicultural" Novel

Last week, Slate ran a conversation between Jim Lewis and Jeffrey Eugenides, on the "uses and abuses of literary modernism." (The e-mail exchange was part of the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday.) What drew my attention to the conversation was Eugenides' contention that "the new 'multicultural' novel isn't new at all." I was interested in how specifically Eugenides was going to define 'multicultural novel' and how he was going to suggest that it wasn't new. Jim Lewis, on the other hand, seemed to think that it is indeed new. Eugenides starts out with this

The majority of so-called multicultural novels are nothing but new wine poured into old bottles. What's the great subject of the novel? Marriage, of course. In the West, we've lost that subject. Marriages aren't arranged anymore. Divorce is no longer unthinkable. You can't have your heroine throw herself under a train because she left her husband and ruined her life. Now your heroine would just have a custody battle and remarry.
What the multicultural novel has going for it is the marriage plot. They can still use it! The societies under examination are conservative, religious, still bound by custom and tradition. And so�voil�you can be an Indian novelist or a Jordanian novelist and still avail yourself of the greatest subject the novel has ever had. Arranged marriages, dowries, social stigma at divorce�it's all back again, in perfect working order.
This doesn't mean that these novels can't be enjoyable. I don't blame them for using the marriage plot. But using it in the way they do has consequences. Though these books are coming out now, they're already at least a hundred years old. Plus, the 19th-century subject matter begins to infect the prose. It makes the characterization creaky. There are cobwebs between the sentences. Entire paragraphs smell like mothballs. The multicultural novel is not alone in this. Most novels smell like that. My old teacher, the great Gilbert Sorrentino, used to put it like this. Of all the books coming out, he'd say. "These books don't exist. I mean, they exist. But they don't EXIST!"

I'm actually astounded by the analogy Eugenides uses and by the idea that because one subject has been dealt with in 19th century England, it can't be dealt with again (and maybe better). Even the "They" in "they can still use it" draws a sharp line between "us" and "them" with the "us" clearly coming out ahead. The 'us" here has gone off to the forest, examined and catalogued a few trees, and declared that the forest was now uninteresting to anyone else but to "others." In his response, Jim Lewis didn't directly answer some of these positions, but Eugenides comes back to them in his last missive. He is quick to defend himself of any charges that he is against multiculturalism itself ("of which [he] heartily approves.") And, having indeed received questions about his use of "multicultural novel" Eugenides sets outs to define his terms

[L]et me define what I mean by the term "multicultural novel." I do NOT mean fiction written in foreign languages. I do not mean Urdu literature or Japanese literature or Nepalese literature. By multicultural I refer to novels written in, say, English, and originally published in the United States or the United Kingdom that deal primarily with characters who are not living in the United States or the United Kingdom, or novels that examine the lives of an ethnic group hermetically insulated from the�and here comes another so-called�dominant culture. I do not mean White Teeth. I do mean Waiting by Ha Jin. I mean writing in a 19th-century manner about characters living in the 20th or 21st, and calling this new because the names of the characters are Hassan or Chen rather than Emma or Mr. Darcy.
You can spot a multicultural novel of this sort very easily. It is written in English but sounds as though it were translated.

I have to take a break here because this is so insanely myopic that I need a breather. Perhaps one should ask Eugenides where he thinks the works of Ahdaf Soueif, Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy, and others whose books were published in the U.K. and U.S., and who deal with characters set in the rest of the world, fit in his view. Does Eugenides seriously want us to believe that what they have written is not new? Yes, most of them have dealt with marriage at one point or another (I mean, seriously, who hasn't?) but have they brought nothing else to the table? How about the way structure was used in Roy's books? The language in Soueif's work? The insistence of Achebe on the purpose of the novel, or indeed, of any work of art? And have none of these contributed to the novel as an art form? Now, at this point, one might ask oneself where Eugenides got the idea that he could neatly put everyone in their boxes. Here's his expertise.

I know what I'm talking about here because the early parts of Middlesex threatened to be just the kind of multicultural novel I so despise. I was writing about Greeks in Asia Minor in 1922, writing about them in English, putting English dialogue in their mouths, and it gave me an ulcer. The way I settled this problem to my satisfaction (save that there's never satisfaction in writing novels) was to interlace this old-fashioned story with a contemporary American one, to try to keep the language peppy and colloquial rather than sonorous and antique, to use lots of postmodern tricks making it clear I was worried about this kind of storytelling, and, especially, by trying to be funny. Still, part of my distaste for the so-called multicultural novel comes from my own near-trafficking in it. I escaped and lived to tell the tale. Beware all who enter here.

Well, thanks for the warning, but, we're going there anyway.

How to Write an Article for Poets & Writers

In the latest issue of Poets & Writers (not yet online) there is an article by Thomas Hopkins about Zoo Press' decision to cancel both its 2003 and 2004 short-story collection contests without giving refunds or providing a satisfactory explanation to the writers who entered the competitions. But I think the article missed two important points. One is that literary bloggers didn't simply "air complaints about the Zoo Press contest", as Hopkins suggests, but in fact were central in bringing this story to light in the first place. In reading the piece, one gets the impression that the story simply appeared in the community's consciousness when in fact blogs were pivotal in bringing attention to it. The other point is that the blog that actually brought this story into the open and that provided Hopkins with several of his sources didn't get mentioned. And that leads me to wonder if, despite the number of readers they draw, blogs are not yet part of the discourse, part of the conversation with other media.

Additions to the Blogroll

Dannyreviews is a great place to look for book reviews. Nextbook is a gateway to Jewish literature, culture, and ideas. And Madinkbeard is a new addition to the lit blog sphere.

I'm Back

Well, what can I say? Junot Díaz kicks ass. I was thrilled to be in his class and learned more from him in one week than I did in entire semesters at other places. So I'm back and have about 150 messages in my inbox, so please bear with me, I will answer within the next few days.

June 18, 2004

Brief Hiatus

I'm going to be away next week in San Francisco. I think I've turned off all the faucets and locked all the windows over here, so I'll be leaving shortly. I'm taking my laptop, but don't expect more than a few sporadic postings. You'll probably be better off visiting any of the fine folks on the right, or stopping by Carrie A. A. Frye's new blog, Tingle Alley, and Bookishblog, Jim Hanas' home. That's it for me. Be back on the 28th.

More IMPAC News

The IMPAC prize seems to have caused a spike in sales for Tahar Ben Jelloun's This Blinding Absence of Light, as noticed by The Literary Saloon. This morning the novel is at an impressive sales rank of 175 on Amazon. (Meanwhile, this is all the NY Times had to say...)

If you're interested in Moroccan literature, I'd like to recommend a few things. Mohammed Choukri's For Bread Alone is a must-read and one of my all-time favorites. (Lit tidbit: the book, originally written in Moroccan Arabic--not the highfallutin Classical dialect of the elite--was translated into English by Paul Bowles and into French by none other than Tahar Ben Jelloun.)

Driss Chraibi used to be one of my favorites when I was a teenager, but I haven't read him in a long time. Le Passé simple is a classic, and La Civilisation, ma mère has a wonderfully tender portrait of a mother caught between traditional roles and the attractions of modernity.

I also like Leila Abouzeid, whose seminal Year of the Elephant affected me deeply because it featured a female character I recognized, one that seemed to be a part of my life, rather than the usual, submissive cliché. (She's also written a fantastic memoir, Return to Childhood.)

And I'd also recommend anything by Edmond Amran ElMaleh, who chronicled the Moroccan Jewish experience in his memoirs, and whose books were passed around in my high school until the pages started falling off.

If you prefer to read fiction in English, you might want to check out Si Yussef, by Anouar Majid.

It'd be Lost in Translation

If you don't speak French, you should learn it just so you can appreciate how funny this is:

"Dans le monde merveilleux de la justice (et de l'édition), publier le livre d'une pétasse ménopausée qui préfère les chèvres et les bébés phoques aux êtres humains (même moi, je ne préfère pas les chats aux gens, et portant, je HAIS les gens...), l'incitation à la haine raciale ne coûte que 5.000 euros.

Via La Muselivre.

June 17, 2004

Mabrouk, Tahar

Moroccan novelist Tahar Ben Jelloun has just won the International IMPAC Dublin Award, the world's largest literary prize. (The shortlist included works by Paul Auster, William Boyd, Sandra Cisneros, Jeffrey Eugenides, Maggie Gee, Amin Maalouf, Rohinton Mistry, Atiq Rahimi, and Olga Tokarczuk.)

Ben Jelloun's novel, This Blinding Absence of Light (Cette Aveuglante absence de lumière), about the horrors endured by a group of political prisoners in a desert jail in Morocco, struck a chord with the jury:

"The story about the hellholes and the survivors - the living cadavers - is a moving description of both unlimited evil and the power of human spirit to survive," said a spokesperson for the jury. "We admired the novel's beauty and clarity of language, its formal restraint which gives it subtle power, its commitment to its terrible subject, its passionate evocation of the human soul and the will to survive."

Although the BBC article doesn't go into details about this, the novel had a difficult genesis. The jail in This Blinding Absence of Light is modeled after the infamous Tazmamart prison, where fifty-eight student officers who had participated in a failed coup d'état against King Hassan II were jailed for more than eighteen years, in solitary confinement. The very existence of the prison was denied by the Moroccan government. After the political reforms of 1991, the prisoners were freed and some of them wrote books about their ordeal. It was then that Ben Jelloun contacted Aziz Binebine, one of the survivors, in order to tell his story in the form of a novel. Many people (including Ahmed Marzouki, whose memoir, Tazmamart: Cellule 10, was reviewed here at Moorishgirl) were upset with Ben Jelloun because they felt that, as an internationally renowned author, he could have done something to attract attention to the prisoners' plight before it became a trendy cause. Ben Jelloun defended himself against these accusations, and said he would share profits from the novel with Binebine.

Ben Jelloun remains perhaps the best-known émigré author from the Moroccan diaspora. He's a household name in Morocco, of course, and in France, where he resides and where he's won the prestigious Prix Goncourt for La Nuit sacrée. In the U.S. Ben Jelloun remains largely unknown, I think. For instance, the last time I looked for his books at a bookstore, I couldn't find them under 'Ben Jelloun' or under 'Jelloun' even though the catalog said that the bookstore had his works. Turns out they had been filed under 'Tahar.' At any rate, I'm happy with the selection and hope that it will bring more attention not just to Ben Jelloun but also to Moroccan literature in general.

Links: Ben Jelloun's website.

June 16, 2004

New Hannah Crafts Book

You haven't heard the last of The Bondwoman's Narrative. Hannah Crafts, the woman who is believed to have written the novel, is the subject of a forthcoming book that will try to elucidate her identity.

I'm quite curious about Crafts, since I was never fully convinced by Henry Louis Gates' process of authentication, especially after a Princeton student noticed passages that are remarkably similar to Dickens' Bleak House, something that had eluded the esteemed professor.

I Don't Suppose They Could Withhold the Vitriol?

Some Wall Street Journal reporters began withholding their bylines from stories in Wednesday editions, part of a planned two-day protest after contract negotiations soured with their employer, Dow Jones & Co.

More about the protest.

Extra Points for Eloquence

Ladies and gentlemen, Bookninja's coverage for Bloomsday.

Junot Diaz's Drown

Another re-read this week, Junot D�az's Drown, in honor of a writing workshop with the man himself, next week in San Francisco. Like Maud, I'm a fan of Diaz's work, and in going through Drown again, I'm surprised at how much some stories have stayed with me since the book came out eight years ago. I remember reading "How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie" in the New Yorker and, at work the next day, striking up a conversation with a nerdy rocket scientist in line at the cafeteria. (I worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at the time.) I started telling this guy about this fantastic story, how Díaz's use of language had opened up new doors for me, and the guy was like, hey, I'll check it out. There aren't many writers that trigger this reaction in me, this wanting to stop a stranger in a cafeteria. Unfortunately, new material from Díaz is hard to come by. There's a non-fiction piece in this week's New Yorker, for instance, but I'm not aware of any new fiction work in the last year or so.

June 15, 2004

Blogger Gathering

Just back from a wonderful dinner with Mark. It was great to finally meet him after months of corresponding by email, and to discuss books, blogs, photography, politics, travel, and other shared interests.

American Indian Literature

A 1,400-volume collection of American Indian literature has been donated to the University of Illinois at Chicago and unveiled recently. Among the books, some of which date back to the 18th century, is a romance novel written by Potawatomi Chief Simon Pokagon in 1899. The collection also includes works by Sherman Alexie and Louise Erdrich.

Lit Crimes

A German journalist who'd been sent review copies tried to sell them on eBay to make "a little money on the side." Needless to say, the booksellers were not amused, and neither, apparently, was the court.

Board Game! With An Exclamation Mark!

Bookstatic! is a new literary board game, consisting of over 800 questions about literary matters. The press release says

The game was designed for the huge market of readers, book collectors, their friends and families.

I lost them at "huge market."

How to Make Friends and Influence People, Part 56

You may already be familiar with Everyone Who's Anyone, the (in)famous website where Gerard Jones makes public his rejections from literary agents and includes his smart-aleck replies to them. Now there's Deb Central, where writer Deb Schwarz shares her rejection slips from literary journals, and where she can't resist taking shots at some of the mags that have turned her down.

Holiday Remembrances

I let my subscription to the New Yorker expire last week and, sure enough, this week there's stuff I actually want to read. Holiday remembrances by Junot Diaz, Zadie Smith, and T.C. Boyle, among others. Excerpts: Zadie Smith's "You Are in Paradise"

If you are brown and decide to date a British man, sooner or later he will present you with a Paul Gauguin. This may come in postcard form or as a valentine, as a framed print for your birthday or repeated many times across wrapping paper, but it will come, and it will always be a painting from Gauguin’s Tahitian period, 1891-1903. Chances are nudity will be involved, also some large spherical fruit.

Or check out Junot Diaz's "Homecoming, With Turtle"

What I wanted more than anything was to be recognized as the long-lost son I was, but that wasn’t going to happen. Not after nearly twenty years. Nobody believed I was Dominican! You? one cabdriver said incredulously, and then turned and laughed. That’s doubtful. Instead of being welcomed with open arms, I was overcharged for everything and called un americano. I put us on all the wrong buses. If there was money to lose, I lost it; if there was a bus to catch, I made us miss it, and through some twist of bad luck all my relatives were in the States for the summer.

Links unabashedly lifted from Maud.

Espionage Lit

Aleksandar Hemon reviews Frederick Hitz's The Great Game: The Myth and Reality of Espionage for Slate. Hitz's research into spy literature leads him to conclude that "no fictional account adequately captures the remarkable variety of twists and turns that a genuine human spy goes through." But, Hemon, argues, that is completely missing the point of fiction. Good spy novels, Hemon says (and I agree) present readers with problems that are primarily moral. Books by Graham Greene, John LeCarré, even Rudyard Kipling are brought to bear on this issue. Read the article here. Oddly enough, Hemon's referred to as a novelist in the credits, rather than as a short-story writer.

Muslim Sexpert

Mohja Kahf is interviewed over at Nerve.

What about homosexuality?
In contemporary Muslim culture, there is pretty much no space for that range of experience. What many Muslims don't understand is that the contemporary take on Islam is so much more intolerant than it was in previous eras of Islamic history. In the eighth century, an openly omnisexual poet wrote very explicit poetry and was given a place in court. In the eleventh century, Ibn Hazm in Islamic Spain wrote a love treatise that goes on and on about kinds of love, including same-sex.

Read the interview here. Kahf is the author of Western Representations of the Muslim Woman and E-mails from Scheherazad.

Speaking of Gay Poets

Here's an article on Abu-Nuwas, the Arabic-speaking Persian poet who was a protege of the Caliph Harun Al-Rashid, and who wrote odes to wine. And men.

Views of the Occident

Yunan Rizk has an interesting article about how Egyptians' views of outsiders have changed over time.

In short, Egyptians developed sharply conflicting attitudes towards European culture and towards the individuals who shaped that culture, who were either portrayed as wholly "good" or wholly "bad". Naturally, this ambivalence was reflected in the Egyptian press and an interesting case study can be found in the biographies of world figures that Al-Ahram would occasionally feature on its "Literature, Science and the Arts" page or in other columns. Not surprisingly, most of the "good" consisted of individuals who contributed to the progress and welfare of mankind as a whole. These included philosophers, scientists and even the occasional politician. The "bad" on the other hand consisted almost exclusively of politicians.

Rizk's work is based essentially on a survey of articles published in Al-Ahram starting in 1934, and it's rather interesting to see how (little) things have changed.

Senna Interview

Danzy Senna is interviewed over at Nextbook about her new novel, Symptomatic. The biracial Senna talks, among other things, about being mistaken for Israeli, for Arab, and, in cabs, for whatever the drivers are.

June 14, 2004

How to Alienate Interviewers

Rebecca Walker talks to the New York Times' Deborah Solomon.

You're the daughter of the novelist Alice Walker. Why did you decide to take her name instead of your father's, who is a lawyer?
It's not that important for me right now. Can we talk about something else?

More of the interview here.

Reason No. 95...

...why joining one of those book-of-the-month clubs might not always be such a good idea.

Control Room

Another Control Room review. Check out the documentary's web page to find out when it comes out near you.

What's Good for the Goose...

Robert McCrum adds to the boo-hoo-hoo line about how bloggers are getting book deals, and what a shame that is. You'll remember that a few weeks back, a similar New Yorker article by Daniel Radosh intimated that bloggers are getting crazy book deals, and that there's an agent at ICM who's devoted to finding the talent.

Somehow, though, the fact that soldiers who write emails about the war in Afghanistan or Iraq will soon get book deals has escaped notice. Soldiers such as the one mentioned in the article get to take writing workshops with the likes of Mark Bowden and Tobias Wolff, with a view to publishing their work in an anthology in 2005, or as part of individual war memoirs. I eagerly await the New Yorker's ironic take on 'Operation Homecoming.'

Strogov Interview

Mark has finally gotten around to transcribing his interview with Leelila Strogov, founder of Swing Magazine. Find out about her vision for the mag, how the editorial process works, the contest she sponsors, etc.

June 11, 2004

Edward Said Documentary

D.D. Guttenplan writes about the documentary he made about the late Edward Said, and which lucky Londoners will have a chance to see this summer. Guttenplan writes with humor about his first encounter with Said, in which he asked him to sponsor a year of study in France.

I was interested in the overlap between philosophy and literary criticism and wanted to go and see Roland Barthes in Paris. (I also wanted to loaf in cafes, drink endless grandes cremes and generally make the most of being 19 years old and abroad.) But I was broke.
My adviser suggested my grant application would be much more successful if it was endorsed by his friend Edward Said, at the time the only tenured member of Columbia's English department on speaking terms with French theory. All I knew about Said was that he was a Conrad scholar and the author of Beginnings, a book I was struggling to read. When I met Said in his office he quickly divined that my interest in structuralist theory was, well, rather theoretical. Far from being shocked, he seemed amused, and agreed to sponsor my research.

Guttenplan recounts briefly his later encounters with Said, reactions to the seminal Orientalism, the Oslo accords, Said's long illness, and the decision to do the documentary.
Update: Here's a review of the documentary. (Thanks, David.)

In the Eye of the Beholder

Tim Cavanaugh sums up some of the reactions Ulysses still gets:

Ulysses recently has drawn the fire of literary iconoclasts. "I will say it once and for all, straight out: it all went wrong with James Joyce," writes the dyspeptic critic Dale Peck, who condemns the book’s "diarrheic flow of words" and applauds himself for having spoken "heresy" against a canonical work. "Ulysses could have done with a good editor," the acclaimed novelist Roddy Doyle recently told an audience of crestfallen Joyce fans. "You know, people are always putting Ulysses in the top 10 books ever written, but I doubt that any of those people were really moved by it." Concludes the writer Stefan Sullivan in a recent Washington Times appreciation: "Ulysses is a pretty awful novel."

One critic even calls it a 'giant fart joke,' which made me feel somewhat better for having never managed to finish the tome. I've always been slow in 'getting' fart jokes.

Superachiever

Teenage immigrant turned microbiologist turned dance teacher turned published author.

Yeah, But Where's His Book Deal?

A German family has taught its dog a 'vocabulary' of 200 words.

Stunned

The Guardian Unlimited has picked Moorishgirl for today's blog pick.

Pulling a Terry Teachout

Earlier this week, this site welcomed its millionth visitor since it opened for business in October 2001. (As of now, MG is at 1,006,775 unique visitors.) The busiest month so far has been March 2003, and the busiest week the one during which the U.S. invaded Iraq, needlessly proving that war will always attract more interest than books.

Currently, Moorishgirl is being read regularly in several European countries (hello, Iceland), Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia (it passed censors' filters!), Japan, Argentina, Australia, Tonga (!!), and, of course, Morocco and the U.S.

Regular referrers include Maud, Jonathan, Mark, TMFTML, Lit Saloon, and Salam Pax.

MG readers tend to come from .com, .net, and .edu addresses, but I wish to inform the regular reader who comes from uscourts.gov that I have faithfully served out my latest jury duty summons, have reported all my meager earnings on my taxes, and recycle my paper and plastic.

Regular search words include 'arab girl,' 'arab sex,' 'short stories,' 'iraqi girl sex,' 'literary blog,' 'girl on girl' (and the ubiquitous 'nell freudenberger') perhaps needlessly proving that sex will always attract more interest than books.

June 10, 2004

Hughes Interview Reactions

Maud's interview with Paris Review editor Brigid Hughes has triggered quite a few responses in the blogosphere. There's Choire's comment that Iowa graduates are hardly "undiscovered." There's a response, from Nathalie, herself an Iowa graduate. Then there's Randa's take. She skipped the MFA altogether.

Recs

Recommendations have been trickling in: David Bezmogzis' Natasha and Other Stories, Pizzeria Kamikaze, a graphic novel by Etgar Keret with art by Assaf Hanuka, The Archivist by Martha Cooley, Prisoners of War by Steve Yarbrough, Wakefield by Andrei Codrescu, A Girl Like Che Guevara by Teresa Doval, and several others. Sorry if I haven't linked to yours. Bit of a rush here.

Another Dancing Arabs Review

Alan Cheuse reviews Sayed Kashua's Dancing Arabs for NPR.

End of Story

A few weeks ago, the BBC launched a competition called End of Story, in which people were invited to submit write endings to stories written by the likes of Ian Rankin and Fay Weldon. The deadline was 10 days ago. Number of entries received? 17,000.

Fifty professional readers are ploughing through the stories before a judging panel, including Muriel Gray, Giles Coren, the actor and playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah, and the literary agent Carole Blake choose 24 finalists, three for each of the eight authors.

Read the full story here.

Confessions of A Judge

Katharine Viner talks about what it's like to be a judge for the Orange Prize.

When I was asked to be a judge, I thought there was no way I could find the time - I have a full-time job, for a start - but then I was told that Helena Kennedy had already said yes, and she's a QC, a Labour peer, chair of the British Council, chair of the Human Genetics Commission, president of the School of Oriental and African Studies, and she's doing a book tour. If she had the time, what was my excuse?

So she agreed, and then read eight (!) books a week. She seems to have started out fairly compassionate, and then got progressively angry. Consider:

There were two particularly low points. One was when I had a run of books about nothing. These were usually by authors from the US, who have attended prestigious creative writing courses, often at the University of Iowa. They are books with 500 pages discussing a subtle but allegedly profound shift within a relationship. They are books where intricate descriptions of a man taking a glass out of the dishwasher, taking a tea-towel off a rail, opening out the tea-towel, then delicately drying the glass with the tea-towel, before pouring a drink into the glass, signify that he has just been through a divorce. At one point, I rang a friend and shouted at her, "I wish some of these bloody writers would write about Iraq!" Or anywhere with a bit of politics or meaning. Luckily, we settled on a shortlist of books that featured Soviet Russia, Nigeria, Jamaican immigration to Britain, the second world war, the New Zealand gold rush and the end of the world, so I got my desire for substance in the end.

I'd have been curious to see which books she meant, so that one could actually have an idea whether she has a point, but she's too cagey and doesn't name names.
Link via The Periscope.

Palahniuk Interview

Chuck Palahniuk answers some email questions over at Bookslut. Palahniuk will be reading from Stranger than Fiction: True Stories next Wednesday.

Blogging Outage

I will be out of town June 20-27 for a conference and I doubt I'll have access to a fast connection, so there probably won't be any blogging. If you're interested in guesting, please email me.

June 09, 2004

Zadie Smith's White Teeth

I haven't been able to find anything that excites me for longer than twenty pages, so I'm re-reading and enjoying) Zadie Smith's White Teeth. I think the last thing this book needs is yet another review, so I'm taking a break this week. If you've read something good lately, feel free to send me your suggestions.

June 08, 2004

Granta Sale

Granta is having a 50% off sale! Whip out your credit cards!