Mixed lollies
Me and the Girlie picked up a kitten from the SPCA on the weekend and I'm discovering how difficult it is to blog, or do anything much, with a cat walking all over the keyboard, perched on your shoulder chewing your ear or attacking your zipper. She's already deleted my Explorer shortcut, consulted the Help files on numerous occasions and done a search for "gzzzz-ax;".Anyway, Chris finds a first-time author using eBay to publish a thriller. "While the quality of the writing might charitably be described as variable," writes the Guardian, "there is no shortage of plot".
More seriously perhaps, Chris reckons the Waterstone's list of 30 books to be rediscovered is notable for at least four titles. We should all go and read (or re-read) Revenge Of The Lawn by Richard Brautigan, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies and Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut.
On a musical note, as one who followed Boy George's career closely since the very start, he's dismayed to find that soon the Culture Club supremo may find himself picking up trash in New York. And Aston Barrett, once Bob Marley’s bassist in the Wailers, has again failed to persuade a court to give him a cut of the royalties. This was the third time “Family Man” Barrett (so called because he’s fathered 52 children) has taken legal action, and it gave the Guardian an opportunity to pun wildly on Marley song titles.
From Mark we get the newest coolest name for girls in the US. It's Neveah (heaven backwards), now more popular than Sara and Vanessa. Journalist Frank Gardner getting shot up in Saudi Arabia and the Observer tearing itself a new ring over anal sex.
Stephen likes Cactus Kate's take on tax cuts and Paul Brislen's on unbundling.
From me? Just this on another chapter in the seemingly endless US debate about the great American novel.
Ciao and Miao.
posted by Rob O'Neill at 10:34 AM
4 Comments:
The NYT list just goes to show -if nothing else- that 25 yrs is not a particularly long time between great works of fiction.
My pick for the last masterpiece in US fiction (and anything written in english, ftm) is The Recognitions, Gaddis' novel from '55.
It wasn't until '75 that the next was published, Gravity's Rainbow (also saw Gaddis publish his second, JR). And in the context of the Slate article, Lot 49 would rank as a novella of stunning achievement.
Then again, maybe TV (and the Innernet) is to blame...
ed
Just to clarify, Ed: are you saying there have been no New Zealand, British, Canadian, South African (etc.) masterpieces of fiction that warrant comparison with Gaddis since 1955, or just that you haven't read any? In any case, that would 'only' be 20 years between The Recognitions and Gravity's Rainbow.
As I said, Chris, nothing written in english -- and the elapsed 25 years I was referring to are the last (the scope of the NYT piece).
Prior to Gaddis, I would say Ulysses in '22 which is what, 33 years?
My point is, specific texts notwithstanding, works of this caliber don't emerge all that regularly and 25 years is a relatively short gestation period. Hell, it took Gaddis 20 years just to have his second book published.
That's all I'm sayin...
ed
In that case, I think I'd have to examine your criteria for masterpiece status, Ed. "Nothing written in English" seems extraordinarily harsh, but then I haven't read everything that's been published in English in the last year, let alone the previous 25. From the examples you've given, you appear to value originality over content, but I won't be arguing with you about Ulysses.
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