Conscientious | Literature

The Library of America

2008-09-18T14:33:04Z

It's funny, I recently bought the two Philip K. Dick volumes (1, 2) of The Library of America, and I ran into exactly the same problem as this writer: "The books are lovely, lovely objects. They are about the nicest books I have. [...] What is really hard, though, is to read them. The books are so gorgeous, so marmoreal, that I find them unreadable. Not unreadable in the Pierre Bourdieu/Edward Bulwer-Lytton sense, and not unreadable in theory â€“ I want to read them, I really do. Itâ€™s just that in practice, I donâ€™t. [...] What is it about these amazingly gorgeous books that makes one not want to read them?"

]]> I do own the paperbacks of most of the novels covered in the two books. Some of them I have as multiple copies: different editions, all found at second-hand book shops (for a buck or two). After all, if you can get this paperback even though you already own this one who would not buy the second copy? I think I'll end up reading the paperbacks (of course, I'll read this copy and not this one).

'I never left anybody. It was him that left me'

2008-05-07T19:12:24Z

"Michel Houellebecq, France's most shocking novelist, made his name with tales of dysfunctional, estranged relationships. Now his own mother, portrayed as a sex-obsessed hippy in one of his books, has launched a devastating counter-attack in a new memoir. [...] She calls her son an 'evil, stupid little bastard' adding that 'this individual, who alas came from my womb, is a liar, an imposter, a parasite and above all - above all - a petit arriviste ready to do absolutely anything for money and fame.'" - story

Philip Roth Not Awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature Again

2007-10-11T15:25:26Z

I wish I could write that they had finally awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature to Philip Roth, but again... I don't think that any other writer has taught me more about American than Philip Roth; and if you've never read American Pastoral or The Human Stain or even Sabbath's Theater (a book that contains too much humour to be truly offensive) you won't know why I'm disappointed that he was passed over, yet again.

'The Road from Danzig'

2007-07-26T02:05:54Z

Günter Grass' admission that he was a member of the Waffen SS has proven to be a welcome opportunity for those eager to strike a righteous posture whenever possible (think, for example, Christopher Hitchens). Interestingly enough, many well-known colleagues of Grass' have refused to follow that pattern (the latest of them John Irving in the New York Times), and now there's Timothy Garton Ash's new piece, well worth the read.

'How I spent the war'

2007-05-29T16:41:59Z

"My new marching orders made it clear where the recruit with my name was to undergo basic training: on a drill ground of the Waffen S.S., as a panzer gunner, somewhere far off in the Bohemian Woods. [...] for decades I refused to admit to the word, to the double letters. What I accepted with the stupid pride of youth I wanted to conceal after the war out of a recurrent sense of shame. But the burden remained, and no one could alleviate it. True, during the tank-gunner training, which kept me numb throughout the autumn and winter, there was no mention of the war crimes that later came to light. But the ignorance I claim cannot blind me to the fact that I had been incorporated into a system that had planned, organized, and carried out the extermination of millions of people. Even if I could not be accused of active complicity, there remains to this day a residue that is all too commonly called joint responsibility. I will have to live with it for the rest of my life." - Günter Grass; a long and important read.

Admiration Journey

2007-04-04T15:36:56Z

"Discussed: Thomas BernhardÂ’s Suzuki Samurai, Memento Mori Woodcuts, Strong Style, World War III, Shoe Tics, Fear of Guns, The Goldberg Variations, Prince, So-Called Novels, So-Called Memoirs, So-Called Houses, The Art of Exaggeration, Samuel Beckett, Distinctly Austrian Words" - story

Thomas Bernhard for life

2006-12-19T21:37:11Z

"Vienna, Cafe Bräunerhof, early on the morning of July 15, 1986. Thomas Bernhard had set a rather vague rendezvous for an interview. He was having his apartment redecorated, he said, 'naturally' in white. He could not stand the presence of the workers in his home, causing him to flee to the coffeehouse in the early morning. When I arrive, he has already settled down, near the entrance, 'where the air is better.' He is walled in by mounds of newspapers whose pages he skims hastily, almost tearing them as he flips through. An interview? Yes, he says, he's in the mood today. But short and to the point.
Thomas Bernhard: So, I'll just keep reading the paper, you don't mind, do you?
Werner Wögerbauer: Well, no, by all means.
[Thomas Bernhard:] You'll have to ask something and then you'll get an answer."
(full interview)

Vintage Paperbacks

2006-10-08T23:43:01Z

When I saw this collection of vintage Pelican paperbacks, I figured I might as well scan my own collection of vintage paperbacks. I have been collecting old paperbacks for a while now, buying whatever I can find, mostly in thrift stores. I have no strict rule for what to buy, so there are books that I bought for the covers (like this one), books that might be cool to read some day (like this one), or older science books (like this one). If you like stuff like this, keep an eye on the page, I'll add more scans over the next few weeks (time permitting...).

The late confession of Günter Grass

2006-08-14T05:15:46Z

"Just weeks before the publication of his autobiography, German Nobel Laureate Günter Grass admits that, between 1944-45, he was a member of Hitler's Weapons SS. The author says the shame of his youthful naivety has long haunted him and that it will now be his 'Scarlet Letter.'" (story) "That the revelations come on the eve of the publication of the author's new autobiography has only added oil to the flames of the debate [...] Is Grass just cynically fishing for headlines to help sell his book? Many German pundits are incensed about what they see as Grass' bottomless hypocrisy. [...] But others have defended the author, calling the timing a highly person matter." (story)
(updated entry)

How not to review a book

2006-01-25T13:19:51Z

There "reviews" of Bernard-Henri Lévy's American Vertigo are easily amongst the worst reviews I've ever come across. A foreigner (a Frenchman and intellectual - oh the horror!) comes to the US, travels around, and writes about it - following an invitation from a US magazine. I read the whole series in that magazine, and I've rarely come across a more refreshing view of the US: Instead of going over the same old clichés, which are so popular either in the US itself or in Europe, Bernard-Henri Lévy proves his fierce independence. The problem for our reviewers, however, is that he is not writing what they want to read (he does get some praise, though, for saying the right things, as in "I especially appreciated his debunking of the myth that Americans are fatter than Europeans."). This kind of reviewing is really just a slightly (but only very slightly) more sophisticated version of what I call the American-Idol effect: Boo whenever anybody dares to say something that doesn't agree with what you yourself think about yourself. After all you cannot be wrong, because you know yourself best; and if anybody dares to disagree with you, that person simply doesn't know what s/he is talking about.

PS: Oh, and the vanity, because Bernard-Henri Lévy did not spin meeting one of the authors (or is it both?) into something bigger in the book! How dare he!

The Paris Review Interviews Online

2005-02-04T17:09:42Z

What they call the DNA of Literature - "over 50 years of literary wisdom rolled up in 300+ Writers-at-Work interviews, now available online - free. [...] Now, for the first time, you can read, search, and download any or all of these in-depth interviews with poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, critics, musicians, and more, whose work set the compass of twentieth-century writing, and continue to do so into the twenty-first." - link
(see at things magazine)

Why do the successes of our peers drive us crazy?

2004-06-29T21:48:02Z

"I think it's interesting that in England three-hundred years ago, people at the bottom of society were called 'unfortunates.' Interesting word, 'unfortunates.' Nowadays they're called 'losers.' That tells us a lot about how things have changed." - Alain de Botton

Is Thomas Bernhard untranslatable?

2003-12-13T04:54:04Z

wood s lot pointed to an excerpt from the first translation of Thomas Bernhard's novella "Gehen" ("Walking" as that translation is called). I started reading the translation and, frankly, I was put off. It just doesn't work. "Gehen" works so well because it uses the way you can use German, something that is not easily possible in English. In German, you can chop up sentences to an amazing extent, then juggle the pieces around and if there ever has been a master of this kind of stuff it was Thomas Bernhard. In German, this chopping up is being preserved as the language forces you to use commas a lot - otherwise there'd be no way to understand the whole thing - something you just don't do in English. On top of that Berhanrd used to place his own commas to create completely different rhythms - so the novella "Gehen", that very intimately relates "to go" with "to think", has its own rhythm most of which comes from the (German) structure of the sentences.

Philip K Dick

2003-12-02T19:03:50Z

The official Philip K. Dick website has just opened. Seems like nobdy can make a science-fiction movie any longer without either using one of his novels (e.g. "Paycheck") or ripping one of (e.g. "The Matrix").

Thomas Bernhard

2003-10-17T14:21:40Z

All about Thomas Bernhard, one of my favourite authors. If you don't know Bernhard and are curious: Try to imagine Philip Roth's "Portnoy's Complaints" minus the sex plus more generalized discussions (and rants) about people and human interactions plus an immense hatred of all things Austrian. Good starting point to read: "Woodcutters" (another translation is called "Cutting Timber: An Irritation"). Another fabulous book (albeit a tough one to read): "The Lime Works".
(thru wood s lot)