A Fine Morning for a Linkdump
I've got a bunch of things to post over the next few days and weeks (at least one guest review, a discussion of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, a review of J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man, maybe some thoughts on M. Rickert's "Anyways", a bit more Sontag & Kael, etc.)
But at the moment I just need to clean out the ol' bookmarks of links I've saved, so here they are:
But at the moment I just need to clean out the ol' bookmarks of links I've saved, so here they are:
- John Holbo calls the opening of M. John Harrison's The Course of the Heart "Wittgensteinian". (Which reminds me that last night I had one of those dreams where I was much smarter than I am, and was explaining the differences between Wittgenstein's early writings and late writings to somebody. I suppose a person shouldn't admit in public that he had a dream about explaining Wittgenstein...)
- The Christian Science Monitor notices bookblogs, but can't bear to utter the word Bookslut.
- Speaking of Bookslut, Geoffrey Goodwin's hanging out over there with an interview with Susanna Clarke, who says, among other things:
Magicians will turn off some readers. Other readers (or possibly the same ones) will be turned off by an insightful examination of the lives of an alcoholic family in, say, Boston, Mass, or Bristol, England. This is all as it should be. It is entirely legitimate not to like reading about magicians or alcoholics.
What about alcoholic magicians? Favorite such tales welcome in the comments. - Speaking of interviews, here's a new one with George Saunders.
- David Denby on Susan Sontag and movies
- The Cultural Gutter on John Brunner's prophetic novels
- Geoff Nunberg on the media's use of the word "refugees" for victims of Hurricane Katrina
- Over at Tingle Alley, there's an in-depth discussion between Our Pals CAAF and The Rake about the book The People of Paper. (Yeah, I know, people are getting committal papers ready because I claim to have imaginary friends named CAAF and The Rake, but they're real, dammit, they're real!)
- The Little Professor reviews John Crowley's Lord Byron's Novel
- Verbal Privilege posts a poem by Agha Shahid Ali, part of which is used as an epigraph to Salman Rushdie's new novel.
- Ron Silliman with lots of thoughts about Terry Gilliam's Brothers Grimm, which he liked.
- Finally, how can you resist a headline like this: Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms (via Splinters)