Bibliophile

Following on from last Saturday’s Saturday Snapshots here are a few more photos of Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is the northernmost town in England. It’s a Border town that changed hands between England and Scotland 14 times until it finally became part of England in 1482. It’s a walled town; the original medieval walls were built in the 13th century and the Elizabethan Ramparts, dating from 1558 are virtually intact. The fortifications replaced the medieval wall on the North and East sides of the town. The photo above shows part of the Elizabethan wall that is now the boundary wall of a car park. Below are two photos of sections of the walls: The photo below shows a Russian cannon, captured in the Crimea. Before the Second World War this part of part of the walls was once bristling with artillery. All that remains now is this cannon which was brought back as one of the trophies at the end of the Crimean War (1854-56). The top of the barrel of the gun is embossed with the double-headed eagle emblem of the Russian Tzar. For more Saturday Snapshots see Alyce’s blog At Home With Books.

I don't talk much about my son here but he's eleven years old and while he loves a good story (I read all of the Harry Potter books to him several years ago), he is not always patient enough to read them. He prefers graphic novels and shorter nonfiction and so when I caught him up in bed, reading ahead in Elise Broach's Superstition Mountain books, I knew they were something special. He loves these two books and is d-y-i-n-g for the third to come out. I felt it was my duty (*grin*) to make sure everyone knew about them. In every possible way Treasure on Superstition Mountain and Missing on Superstition Mountain are cut from the cloth of classic middle grade adventure. You have four likeable kids - three brothers and their spunky girl neighbor - the pensive, more bookish child is the narrator, the parents are all decent admirable folks who support these curious active children (while also being busy enough to let them disappear for awhile) and there is a huge mystery - HUGE - that demands to be solved. In this case the story is all about the Lost Dutchman's Mine, a very real Arizona legend that Broach discusses in her excellent afterwords. The kids go hiking on Superstition Mountain (a real place), and through an accident discover something sinister. In search of clues about what they've found, the kids hit the library, which adds an unexpectedly creepy character to the story, and the cemetery, which gives us a slightly unhinged character, and to the historical society - where we find a hero! Huzzah! It's all very Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys/Trixie Belden at their best and the scary is just the right amount of scary to keep readers turning the page while not terrifying. My son loves that each chapter ends with you wanting more and even though both books end without cliffhangers, the main story arc clearly continues. Broach is great at pacing and think that is a big part of why these books succeed so much. We have both titles in hardcover for as my son says, he "NEEDS' them and can't stand the thought of them falling apart at some point. The covers catch the eye of their audience (kids in action!) and the drawings in the text are quite good - though, surprisingly, my son has not relied upon them. The story keeps him moving forward, not the pictures. I can't wait to see how Broach ends this trilogy. There are some bad guys, and a lot of questions but mostly I'm enjoying how the characters have evolved and grown to ask more questions and think more deeply about what they are finding and learning. Plus she has managed to work a library and ghost town into the narrative - how cool is that? Highly recommend, of course!

It changed him for the better. Really it did. Occasionally, you hear someone blather on about how art can change your soul.  And far more rarely, you run across someone for whom it’s actually true. Over at “A Piece of Monologue,” Rhys Trantor interviews 79-year-old actor and former felon Rick Cluchey, founding director of San Quentin Drama Workshop. Cluchey discovered Samuel Beckett and theater at the same time, while serving a sentence for armed robbery.  It’s a moving and powerful story, and it’s here. The occasion for the article:  this month Cluchey was performing in one of Beckett’s very last plays, Krapp’s Last Tape, in Chicago.  It’s a role Cluchey has put his stamp on.  Even Beckett himself approved of the portrayal: “Rick is an impressive Krapp,” he confided in a letter.  And he repeated variants of the same thought to others before his death in 1989. Cluchey was paroled in 1966, and finally met his mentor in Berlin, 1975.  He worked with the Irish playwright, and performed Krapp for the first time in 1977. From the interview: Since Cluchey’s first encounter with Beckett’s work in 1957, some fifty-six years have elapsed. I ask whether age has changed the way he performs the plays, or whether it’s changed what the texts mean to him. ‘No. Age has nothing to do with the template that Beckett has pressed into my soul. Beckett is the architect of the play, I follow his blue lines.’ Of Krapp’s Last Tape, he says: ‘I have played this part in three generations: prior to the age of Krapp in the play, whilst I was his age, and for many years after.’ Does the play, then, seem to remain relevant over the course of a whole lifetime? ‘Based on Beckett’s writing and direction, age shouldn’t be a factor.’  Apparently, Chicago agrees. According to Lawrence B. Johnson writing in Chicago on the Aisle:  “Samuel Beckett died in 1989 at age 83, which gives one pause upon seeing that the current staging of his monodrama Krapp’s Last Tape produced by Shattered Globe Theatre is directed by Beckett himself. The answer is that the masterly impersonator of Krapp before us, Rick Cluchey, acquired the ticks, wrinkles and regrets of this hermetically sealed old man while working with Beckett late in the playwright’s life. Curiously enough, we found a video of Cluchey performing the same role, also in Chicago, in 1981.  It’s below.

In the Asahi Shimbun Mariko Nakamura reports that When it comes to publishing Haruki Murakami in English, nothing is lost in translation, revealing that Philip Gabriel: is now translating Murakami's latest best-seller, Shikisai o Motanai Tazaki Tsukuru to, Kare no Junrei no Toshi [色彩を持たない多崎つくると、彼の巡礼の年] (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage). And: He plans to complete the translation by the year-end, with publication expected in 2014. Also: "It is a very realistic book, like Norwegian Wood," Gabriel said in an e-mail interview. "To me, it seems more serious, even somber, compared to some of his other novels, but one ultimately that is hopeful." Don't worry, Murakami's other translator, Jay Rubin hasn't been forgotten, and he: is currently translating Murakami's Ozawa Seiji-san to, Ongaku ni Tsuite Hanashi o Suru [小澤征爾さんと, 音楽について話をする] (Talking with Seiji Ozawa about music), which was published in 2011.

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Literature will only be announced in October, but previously the Swedish Academy -- who select the winner -- had revealed that 195 eligible names were submitted for consideration, of which 48 were first-timers (see my previous mention). Now, as they've tweeted: 5 candidates have been selected for 2013 #NobelPrize in #Literature according to Permanent Secretary of the Swedish Academy. The permanent secretary, Peter Englund, goes into a bit more detail at his weblog, Att vara ständig -- and apparently the five names have only been submitted; it's not entirely final until the last session before the summer at the end of the month. A couple of observations here: - No, they don't reveal the names. Not until fifty (and a half) years from now. In fact, they try very hard to keep them secret. - As I've repeatedly stressed: you have to be in it to win it -- or to make the shortlist. Which is easier said than done. There's a lot of Nobel/Swedish Academy bashing that misses this point. Consider, for example, Forged-author Jonathon Keats' recent Wired piece, Don't Hate Google for Reader - Award It the Nobel Prize for Books [sic]. He begins: When the Nobel Prizes launched in 1901, possible choices for the award in literature, bestowed upon a living writer to honor their entire life's work, included such historical titans as Leo Tolstoy, Edith Wharton, and Henry James. The thing is, as a search for the 1901 nominees shows, Tolstoy, Wharton, and James were not among the names submitted to the Swedish Academy for consideration -- while eventual laureate Sully Prudhomme was nominated by three individuals (including a University of Uppsala professor), as well as a whole gang of French academicians -- i.e. he had a lot of support. This is relevant, because easy as it is for outsiders to say authors X,Y, and Z are obviously the most deserving, someone still has to nominate them for them to (possibly) make the final cut. So, for example, the information that this year the Swedish Academy tried to reach out to more African academics in the nominating procedure might suggest that there's a higher-than-usual chance of African names appearing in the pool the finalists were selected from. On the other hand, less well-known writers from less widely translated languages -- especially authors not in official favor (in a lot of these countries official writers' bodies do the nominating) -- are disadvantaged. - The only author whose nomination has widely (and controversially) been acknowledged is Paul Goma, his name submitted by the Writers' Union of Moldavia; see, for example, the Mediafax report -- and e.g. the Times of Israel report, Author accused of anti-Semitism nominated for Nobel. (His nomination can't just be dismissed out of hand as (noxious) political posturing, either: he doesn't stand much of a chance of winning -- after Herta Müller, it's unlikely another Romanian dissident would get the prize so soon -- but he's not just some two-bit hack (and he had very good dissident cred back in the day); among his books available in English is My Childhood at the Gate of Unrest (published by Readers International); (try to) get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.) In any case, now that the list is down to a manageable five, things get more interesting. The Swedish Academy members, who will be reading up on the finalists, will try to be careful, but it's probably pretty hard for all of them to cover their reading-tracks convincingly: it seems pretty clear, for example, that Mo Yan's name cropped up more last summer than they would have liked (which is why he found himself a betting favorite right from the start of last year's Nobel betting-season). The fact that a finalist or two or all five are identified only gets us so much closer to the actual winner -- w

Hi. Susan Tomaselli is taking a well-earned sabbatical from 3:AM this summer, so I’ll be stepping in as co-editor in chief, focusing on non-fiction. I’ve been commissioning for 3:AM since 2011, so some of you will know me, and will have worked with me already. But I’d like to say that, right now, I’m open for speculative pitches and submissions, and will be reading them continuously. So get in touch. I’ll be especially pleased to hear from you if you have an idea for an essay, interview or book review related to one of the following three areas, which I’m keen to increase our coverage of: – Fiction in translation – Contemporary American fiction, particularly work published by small presses – Critical theory and continental philosophy A brief word about book reviews: I love long-form criticism, and rarely impose word limits. As long as your writing is strong and self-consistent, I won’t ask you to simplify it for the sake of “accessibility.” Similarly, for fiction reviews, I don’t demand banal contextualization or plodding plot synopses. Online, the form and function of criticism are fair game for redefinition. I encourage criticism that is creative, unconventional, and that brings books into active collision with the lived experience of the critic. Of course, I’ll happily publish a thoughtful journalistic review. But if you’re willing to write something a little wilder, I’ll welcome it with open arms. If you’re wondering what I mean, here’s a favourite quote, from Geoffrey Hartman: It is not an exaggeration to say that the critic has become a retainer to those in our society who want not the difficult reality but merely the illusion of literacy… if he becomes a journalist or reviewer he flatters, cajoles, and admonishes the authors of books whose profits keep the publishers happy and his own job relatively secure. The only critic, therefore, whom we must take seriously is one who may not yet exist: who overextends his art, having decided that his role is creative as well as judicious. The critic’s words should enter the world of art even as the arts and institutions he comments on have entered his. As the work of art is an event in the history of interpretation, so the work of interpretation is an event in the history of the work of art. Thanks, and best wishes, David Winters

I woke up this morning thinking “yes, today I will finally blog about one of the many, many books I’ve read recently.” I really did have the best of intentions, planning to talk about The Bannister Girls by Jean Saunders, a light romance from Bloomsbury Reader which I sped through Thursday morning about the lives of three sisters during the First World War, but then I got a better offer: to take advantage of the rain-free morning (a rarity this week) and go tour the local botanical gardens.  So, instead of a review, here are a few photos: I may (still) not be reviewing but I am reading.  Right now, I’m in the midst of Inside the Kingdom by Robert Lacey, a profile of Saudi Arabia from the 1970s to the present, and Betsy and the Great World by Maud Hart Lovelace, in which twenty-one year old Betsy leaves Minnesota in early 1914 to tour Europe.  I am loving the Lacey so far and, when I need a break, Betsy is a most entertaining distraction, although the frequent descriptions of her outfits are driving me slightly mad.  (These sartorial details were also a distraction for me in the only other Maud Hart Lovelace book I’ve read, Emily of Deep Valley.)  Betsy, bless her, has some truly horrific sounding outfits in the most garish colours. Tonight I’m off to the theatre but I really (honestly!) will spend some of this weekend working on reviews.

Etymological Wordnet looks promising, even if I don't understand quite how it works; their website says: The Etymological Wordnet project provides information about how words in different languages are etymologically related. The information is for the most part mined from Wiktionary. The semi-structured data is turned into a machine-readable etymological database that also incorporates some additional manually added etymological relationships. A very basic interface to the data is provided at lexvo.com. A more advanced browsing interface will be available later. But when I click on the lexvo.com link, I get "Unable to connect: Firefox can't establish a connection to the server at www.lexvo.com." At any rate, I thought I'd toss it out there for adventurous lovers of etymology. And speaking of etymology: "Two new antedatings of hot dog!" Fred Shapiro has taken it back to November 14, 1886, and the source (from the Nashville Tennessean) is quite striking: "'Hot stuff,' 'hot pup,' 'hot dog,' sings out the fiend who carries in one hand a tin cooking arrangement, and on the other arm a basket. He is the wiener wurst fiend. It is his cries that greet you as you enter the theater and regreet you as you come out. He is the creature whose rolls make the night hideous, and whose wares make dreams that poison sleep..."

Ben Yagoda has a Lingua Franca post celebrating great sentences, which he collects "the way some people collect beach glass, small statues of turtles, or perceived insults." He provides a nice selection, including some of everyone's favorites ("'Shut up,' he explained."?Ring Lardner) and some idiosyncratic choices ("Asked his last name, Tom said, 'Why?'"). But what I want to quote in extenso is this:Currently my favorite sentence is from the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry on Horace de Vere Cole, a "practical joker" (that is the DNB's summary phrase) who died in 1936. My friend Wes Davis alerted me to the sentence several years ago, and I return to it whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth. Actually, there are several contenders in the Cole entry, which was written by Richard Davenport-Hynes. The final line is a classic of over-the-top understatement: "His widow married Mortimer Wheeler (1939) and shot Lord Vivian (1954)." Still, nothing can top the one Wes told me about, which describes the aging practical joker in the winter of his years: "His advanced deafness prevented him from realizing that his carefully timed coughing was inadequate to cover his explosive breaking of wind."

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley (M, 30s, said to me “This conductor sounds like the teacher on Charlie Brown”, G train) http://bit.ly/107KQqi