It makes sense that all those pointy-headed intellectuals (a quick search of the Internet and my claim will be confirmed) would flock around George Scialabba and his new anthology of essays and reviews, What Are Intellectuals Good For? (Pressed Wafer Press). If that smallish chorus doesn’t congratulate each
If there are non-English speaking writers who have made as big an impact on the literary world as the late departed Chilean, Roberto Bolaño, I am not aware of them. The onslaught of posthumous publications, which include The Savage Detectives and 2666 has fed a large appetite of the
The notion of style is a matter confounding even the most nimble thinkers—so it is, at the least, convenient to have some guideposts in this tricky terrain. And for the unfortunate and benighted individuals whose calling is writing or whose intention is a clarity of communication in English, one
J.C. Hallman, editor of an inspired anthology, The Story About the Story: Great Writers Explore Great Literature (Tin House), has already exhibited a commendable ambidexterity with his nonfiction (soon to be a useless descriptor) tome The Devil Is a Gentleman: Exploring America's Religious Fringe, a companionable investigation
Now that I am more kindly disposed toward The Paris Review--the literary institution founded by George Plimpton and a cohort of his pals back in the wild and crazy 1950s--since they have dropped the hyperbolic "DNA of literature" slogan, I am pleased to pass on the
Merce Cunningham's recent death at the age of 90 reminded me that--except for the New York Times and colonial outposts of New Yorkers--the passing of nonagenarians (save Walter Cronkite) of great accomplishment rarely receives much attention in our brave new 24/7 world. Arthur Miller, the
Considering the marginal contribution literary fiction makes to the commercial publishing engine’s so-called bottom line, I am ever astounded so many literary biographies, writers’ memoirs, and authors’ correspondences are published. In the fullness of time I expect to talk about some recent literary marginalia, but in the meantime
