April 2007

On Deck +

Contributors +

Hermione Lee looks at a handful (actually a shelfful) of recent books on the novel in the latest NY Review of Books :

“As in all these books, there is a great deal of discussion about the relation between the aesthetic and the ideological. In the long history of attacks on the novel for being more pleasurable than moral, or more about style than ethics, the image of the “sugared pill” has been a recurring metaphor… As with fiction, so with criticism. Moretti maintains that “pleasure and critique should not be divided,” but there were many times, wading through The Novel, that I wished the pill had been better sugared.”

Reginald Shepard Shares his List of Most Influential Poetry Criticism Books. Generous of him and an interesting list.

“I am also enraptured by Bolaño’s mix of the odd and the ordinary, the easy movement he makes between the logic of modernity and the logic of dreams, the willingness he has to indulge in goofiness and absurdity, and the general refusal in all of his work (that I have read) to turn terror and evil into simple melodrama.” – Matt Cheney

comment Roberto Bolaño

“if you, in the literary criticism and analysis world, make fun of people who should naturally be your primary audience…you are a huge recursive tool. I’m sorry, but it’s true: you are a monkey wrench you have thrown into your own self.” – Darby M. Dixon III

I have a serious addiction to kettle corn. Not even mentioned here, but the sentiment of the conversation on popcorn is one I share.

Sad about the Astor Place Barnes & Noble closing? Don’t be. Within a short walk you’ll find, St. Mark’s Bookshop, Shakespeare & Company and 12th Street books, among others. 

How many of the authors listed on the front page of Words Without Borders have you read? For me that answer is usually none or close to. Being in North America (and in particular NYC) can easily make you think you’re exposed to the world, yet still WWB makes it clear that there’s a lot more out there. This month’s theme is African writing. 

James Tata reminds me (as a point of departure from his post on Pat Metheny and Brad Mehldau) how much I like the album Charlie Haden and Egberto Gismonti In Montreal.



The Pat Metheny Group’s American Garage, released in 1980, is, I suppose, a crossover record, but was my introduction to jazz (could it have been 27 years ago? Yikes!). Although I quickly moved on from his brand of jazz, he’s always worth paying attention to because he’s a precise and elegant musician.



As far as the Haden’s work with the Brazilian composer/pianist/guitarist Egberto Gismonti goes, it’s one of his finest collaborations partly due to the tension, for lack of a better description, in Gismonti’s music.



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