opinionated commentary on literary matters - from the complete review

       Australian fiction

       In the Sunday Times Caroline Baum surveys Australia's literary landscape, as she thinks Australian novelists are finally gaining the recognition they deserve.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Jeanette Winterson interview

       Jeanette Winterson will deliver the opening address at the Sydney Writers' Festival (which runs 19 to 25 May), and in Won't take no for an answer in the Sydney Morning Herald Deborah Snow talks with her.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       James Bond guides

       It seems like everyone is offering a variation of James Bond guide this weekend. See:

• James Bond: a reader's guide in The Times, where 'Henry Chancellor gives the low-down on the entire canon'
• James Bond books are forever in The Telegraph, where Joseph Connolly 'provides a bookworm's guide'
• The Bond dossier in The Observer, where Emily Stokes offers all sorts of odds and ends

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       The Gift of Rain review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Tan Twan Eng's The Gift of Rain.
       Published by newcomer Myrmidon in the UK last year, it attracted some attention by getting longlisted for the Man Booker award. Weinstein Books got the US rights, and have now published it stateside.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Yuri Rytkheu (1930–2008)

        Russian author Yuri Rytkheu (Юрий Сергеевич Рытхэу) has passed away; see, for example, Victor Sonkin's piece in The Moscow Times, Yury Rytkheu, an author from Chukotka, has died in St Petersburg (though if "all major news agencies reported his death" we sure missed it -- and we imagine you did, too). Interesting to learn that:

Eventually, the German-language publications of the writer's books afforded Rytkheu a comfortable lifestyle in St.Petersburg.

       Archipelago have brought out his A Dream in Polar Fog (see their publicity page (or Telegram's), or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), and will be bringing out The Chukchi Bible; we expect to get to both eventually.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       The call-in debate ?

       BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize-judge Claire Armitstead wonders Just how many books should you read to judge an award ?, complaining:

Like most prizes, the Samuel Johnson allows publishers to submit a set number of books per imprint -- in this case three -- which brought in 131 titles. But then comes the dangerous business of call-ins. As the prize year runs to April, some excellent books hadn't even been published by the entry deadline. Like kids at a pick-and-mix stall, my four fellow judges and I rummaged through the books pages, demanding more and more.

       The result ?

In the end we called in 31 books, which increased our workload by nearly 25%. For last year's Booker prize, 92 novels were submitted and a further 18 were called in by the judges.

       Amazingly, she doesn't question the limit-per-publisher -- or note the absurdity that the Man Booker allows only two titles per publisher imprint (i.e. the Samuel Johnson prize is willing to consider 50 per cent more books from each imprint !). Publishers of course can not be trusted to pick the best titles -- hence the obvious need for call-ins. But that also leads to them playing with their submissions even more, risking leaving some titles off in the knowledge (well, strong hope) that they will be called in.
       Armitstead wonders:

So is the call-in system actually worth the extra work it generates ? On the plus side, it enables prize juries to follow the buzz around books, and take in titles which the publishers might not have thought to submit for all sorts of reasons. (Zadie Smith's White Teeth, the highest profile book ever to win the Guardian first book prize, was technically a call-in because it was only the second year of the prize and Penguin forgot to submit.)

       Forgot or 'forgot' ... ?
       And she notes:

Two weeks ago, I would have begged for call-ins to be banned. Today I'm not so sure. Without them, we wouldn't have had Patrick French's Naipaul biography on the shortlist.

       They didn't submit the Naipaul biography ... ? Of course they didn't .....
       As we've endlessly argued, having publishers decide what books should be prize-contenders -- at least for the very general ones, like the Man Booker -- is ridiculous if they are only allowed so few slots (especially since the same quotas apply to the publisher who publishes 500 theoretically eligible titles, and the one who publishes five). So we'd certainly be for a different gatekeeper/selection process. But far more important would be a bit of accountability: there should be complete openness as to what books have been submitted for a prize (as is, almost none of these prizes reveal who is even in the running, with the Man Booker folk even being proud of their secrecy).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       In and out of print down under

       In Chasing the printed word in The Age Jane Sullivan finds that:

Australian literature is a strange market. You can't buy new copies of some of our most revered and loved books for love or money: they are as rare as that samizdat edition. Yet there's a small but thriving market in second-hand books, and some sell for big sums.

       Yes:

"Many of the novels for which the Oxford Companion to Australian Literature devotes individual entries are out of print," Thawley says. "The list goes on and on."

There are many reasons for this. The Australian book market is relatively small, with a huge marketing emphasis on new titles, and it is not commercially viable for publishers to keep putting out their backlists. Demand from older readers drops off, and many younger readers are not exposed to Australian literature at school or university.

       But there are a few efforts to rectify this situation:

The latest POD venture is the Classic Australian Works series, which aims to bring out-of-print novels from the University of Sydney Library's digital collection back into circulation. The library revived its old publisher, Sydney University Press, partnered with the Copyright Agency Limited and asked the Association for the Study of Australian Literature and the Australian Society of Authors to nominate the most important 20th-century novels that should always be in print.

       Sounds good.
       But Sullivan has some funny ideas about the American scene:

But the economic situation has changed radically, governments are reluctant to hand out money and Australia doesn't have the same tradition as the US, where classics are kept in print by philanthropic institutions or endowment funds.

       We'd love to meet those philanthropic institutions and endowment funds; they sure do seem to keep a low profile .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       UK books festivals guide

       In The Times Megan Walsh and Caroline White have assembled The 30 best books festivals in the British Isles: the definitive 2008 guide -- and it really is pretty useful: sums up most of the relevant information, offers the relevant dates and URLs. Good job.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Scottish abyss ?

        In The Guardian Stuart Kelly thinks all the Scottish cheer-leading and patting-themselves-on-back is getting to be a bit much in Wha's like us ?, concluding:

Scottish novels by Scottish novelists for Scottish readers about Scottish stuff is a kind of abyss, an abyss in which many of our writers and critics willingly revel. There would be no greater proof of Scotland's cultural maturity than if it were to stop telling us how wonderful it is and how overlooked it has been, and begin the hard work of listening to the rest of the world and entering into dialogue with it. Wha's like us ? Listen and we might find out.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       The New Yorker's book blog

       Everybody is joining the literary weblog fun: this week alone Harper's has unveiled Wyatt Mason's Sentences (nice start; it'll be interesting to see whether he can keep it up) and now The New Yorker leaps into the fray with the promising-looking The Book Bench.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       The Original of Laura manuscript

       There's been a tremendous amount of coverage concerning the fate of Vladimir Nabokov's final, unfinished work, The Original of Laura, with son Dmitri finally deciding not to burn it after all. In Le Monde Lila Azam Zanganeh catches French readers up with all the fuss around Le dernier Nabokov -- but also offers something new (at least to us), a photograph of the manuscript (taken in the Montreux bank where it is kept under lock and key):



(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       David Marr on Patrick White

       Matilda points us to Patrick White-biographer David Marr's piece on Patrick White: The final chapter in The Monthly, in which he discusses at length some of what was to be found in the 32 boxes of White-papers that were recovered a couple of years back. Fascinating stuff, as he reveals:

I've now read them from beginning to end, the first person to do so, it seems, since White put them away in his desk. I already knew a good deal about two of them. ‘Dolly Formosa and the Happy Few' is a fragment of a novella about an ageing actress. ‘The Binoculars and Helen Nell' is a great fat novel of about 160,000 words about the many remarkable lives of a cocky farmer's daughter. Both projects were begun and abandoned in the late '60s. Letters White wrote at the time discuss their plots, their progress and his reasons for putting them aside. Having them to read is a wonderful experience, but they don't give any radical, fresh insight into White and his work.

The third is a different kettle of fish. When I was writing White's biography, I came across brief references to a novel begun and put aside in 1981. I gave the project the code name "Novel Y" in my research notes and its fate rates a bare mention in my book. But here is the manuscript, and having read it I realise ‘The Hanging Garden' was a masterpiece in the making and its abandonment after 50,000 words was a watershed in White's life and a loss, a damn shame, for Australian writing.

       We'd love to see all three published ..... But, unfortunately, interest in White's fiction seems to have ebbed completely:

Mobbs is a realist. She acknowledges the slump in White's reputation. She argues it happens to all great writers when they die. At least for a time. She blames today's waning enthusiasm on shifting taste in language. "Read," she says, opening a new American novel and one of White's books at random. It's true no one writes quite like White anymore. But fans of Cormac McCarthy and Annie Proulx know there's an enduring taste for contemporary baroque.

       Marr thinks there's more to it:

I suspect the problem runs deeper than the difficulties of his prose. More than we care to admit, we want novels to offer at least the hope of happiness. White's fiction campaigns against false hopes of happiness and the perils of seeking it in sex, power and possessions. Such ascetic restraint is truly out of fashion these days, for the "march of material ugliness" he denounced almost from the moment he returned to Australia after World War II has all but overwhelmed us. We're calling for a truce in the pleasure wars, but White is still fighting, still absolute. For him, intense happiness is to be found in marriage, work, integrity, even purity. For those who feel no connection with this, Patrick White seems a grumpy dinosaur, a monster of reproach.

       And while it's not news, the figures are worth repeating:

That White had lived on dividends not royalties was always known, but among his papers are the figures that prove the point: in the last six months of his life he earned $7000 from royalties, but his share portfolio at the time of his death was valued at $2 million.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Transforming rats in translation

       At the Words without Borders weblog Arnon Grunberg describes his experiences at Dutch Translation Workshops in Italy -- highlighting yet more translation issues:

In Naples the students pointed out a sentence in my second novel Silent Extras. In this sentence I use the word "rat" three times.

My Italian translator translated the first "rat" with "rat," the second "rat" with "mouse" and the third "rat" with "small mouse."

The students explained that word repetition in the Italian language is problematic; according to some students it is something that cannot be done in the written language.

On the one hand, I respect the choices my Italian translator made. On the other hand, it is puzzling how a rat can become a small mouse in the space of one sentence.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Authors and -- or: versus ? -- translators

       Marilyn Booth has written about her experiences as 'translator' of Rajaa Alsanea's Girls of Riyadh before, notably in her letter to the editor (scroll down) of the TLS (27 September 2007), and now she has a bit more room to expand on the subject in Al-Ahram Weekly, asking more generally: Where is the translator's voice ?
       She maintains:

It is equally important to attend to the how of translation.

       And she notes:

If a good translation cannot guarantee the success of a novel, a bad translation can guarantee lukewarm or negative reception. Yet translators are more often than not ignored if not vilified in the process. Writers and critics need to understand what we translators do and what our constraints are in an increasingly globalised, multinational, profit-seeking publishing business. Writers and publishers alike must respect our art and our expertise if they hope truly to put Arabic literature on the global map.

       She also mentions that, regarding Alsanea's book, those interested in: "the differences between my translation and that published by Penguin may read my essay on the topic in the July 2008 issue of Translation Studies published in the UK", which is certainly something we'll be looking out for.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Warsaw International Book Fair

       The Warsaw International Book Fair runs through the 18th -- and once again, the guest of honour is Israel. As AFP report, Israeli writers feted at Warsaw book fair -- and curiously enough, after all those protests about Israel being guest of honour at the bookfairs in Turin (last week) and Paris (in March), no one seems to much care about the Israelis being the centre of attention here. Maybe everyone can actually concentrate on the books (and authors) !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       New Statesman checks out Omega Minor

       Nice to see that, hot on the heels of Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor taking the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize, the New Statesman quickly/finally gets around to having a look for themselves, as Heather Thompson reviews it.
       The prize will presumably nudge a few more bloggers to have a look and comment on the book, too, but it's good to see some print-media outlets do the same. (Will any in the US ?)

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Talked about in Germany

       Signandsight.com offer their useful seasonal feature, here presenting: "the most talked about books of the 2008 spring season" (in Germany -- which includes books translated into German).
       Among the more interesting-sounding local novels is this one:

In his debut novel Bestattung eines Hundes (burial of a dog) Thomas Pletzinger describes one man's attempt to do just this. Ethnologist-cum-journalist Daniel Mandelkern allows himself to be dragged into a story which combines New York, Brazil, a deadly menage a trois and literary riffs on Uwe Johnson, Max Frisch, Clifford Geertz and Jacques Lacan.

       (There's also more information about it at Litrix's look at this spring’s most important new books (scroll down).)
       And the signandsight-overview also gives you a nice run-down of the reactions to Charlotte Roche's much-discussed (and very best-selling) Feuchtgebiete .....
       (And there's also an overview of the most-talked about non-fiction .....)

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Némirovsky numbers

       Joseph V. Tirella's Portfolio story really is titled: The Suite Smell of Success, but at least they offer some hard numbers in discussing Irène Némirovsky's career-boost in the wake of the success of Suite Française:

The book was an instant hit upon its release in France in 2004, selling more than 640,000 copies, according to its publisher, Denoel. Translated into 32 languages and published in 35 countries (with more still to come), the hardcover edition sold hundreds of thousands of copies. In the U.S. alone, 900,000 English versions have sold, says Random House, whose imprints Alfred A. Knopf and Vintage had the domestic rights. Both editions of Suite Française were New York Times bestsellers; the trade paperback edition alone occupied a spot on the list for over 30 consecutive weeks.

       By comparison:

Celebrated Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk is considered to have a strong audience in the U.S.; the hardcover edition of his 2004 novel, Snow, sold 42,000 copies here, according to Nielsen BookScan. Since then, the trade paperback edition of Snow has sold more than 342,000 copies in the U.S. -- no doubt helped along by his 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature. Yet he's still nowhere near Némirovsky's numbers.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Chetan Bhagat profile

       At BBC News Neil Heathcote profiles One night @ the call center-author Chetan Bhagat, in From banker to best-selling writer, as his new novel (which we do hope to review), The Three Mistakes of My Life has just been released.
       Bhagat differentiates himself from most of the Indian writers familiar to Western readers:

"I think I opened up the Indian market for writing in English," he says quite matter-of-factly. We wasted 30, or 40 years trying to impress British juries, trying to win a prize.

"Today we have literature which is written for Indians, read by Indians, in English -- and it is selling big volumes." So who are these new readers ? If his fan mail is anything to go by, 70% of them are not from the big cities, but from small towns.

       (We think Shobhaa De might have a word or two to say about having opened the Indian market for writing in English, but he has admittedly moved the bar up yet another notch.)
       Certainly worth thinking about:

The second issue is the cost.

Small town readers have less money, so his books have a low cover price.

This, he thinks, is how the market will develop.

       Sounds good to us.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Mid-East fun

       We've mentioned both the Palestine Literature Festival (here) and the International Writers Festival in Jerusalem (here), but as Ilene R. Prusher now writes in the Christian Science Monitor, In literature, too, an Israeli-Palestinian split.
       Yes, sadly:

But with two literature festivals going on in the same town -- a fact largely unknown to the organizers and the top-shelf authors they attracted -- it seems that a glass barrier enforces the divide in places where the more visible walls and checkpoints do not.

       To add to the fun and make sure no one gets along, ynet and other Israeli outlets (but no one else yet, as far as we can tell) report that:

Diplomatic tensions have arised between Israel and Egypt due to a harsh statement made recently by Egyptian Culture Minister Farouk Hosni. In a conference that took place in the Egyptian Parliament last week, the minister said that he "would burn Israeli books himself if found in Egyptian libraries."

       This from a minister of culture ! (Who apparently has aspirations to head UNESCO, no less .....) Since American first lady Laura is accompanying the jr. Bush on his current trip in these parts, and since we constantly hear about her interest in bookish things, maybe she could give this guy an earful. (But we figure that's about as likely as that her husband will push even ever so gently on the rest of that regime to allow for a bit of actual democracy in that country.)

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize shortlist

       They've announced the shortlist for the 2008 BBC FOUR Samuel Johnson Prize; we don't have any of the titles under review.
       For additional coverage (and the odds on the contenders), see, for example, Ben Hoyle's Biography of VS Naipual as monster may scoop Samuel Johnson prize in The Times.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Obscure-book recommendations

       In their summer-guide, The Village Voice goes through the always entertaining exercise of having Our Favorite Writers Pick Their Favorite Obscure Books.

       They also look at Summer Fiction in Translation -- but find only four titles, two of which we have under review too: Julien Parme by Florian Zeller and The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       More procrastination

       At Slate Jessica Winter continues her look at literary procrastination, focussing, in "It's All in My Head", on varieties of authorial procrastination.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Translating prizewinners

       Nice job over at The Millions, where they look at The Prizewinners: International Edition, considering for 1995 to 2005:

what were the most decorated books in foreign-language fiction during the same period ? And how many of them are currently available in English ?

       Not surprisingly the premier French prize, the Prix Goncourt, fares well: a TQ ('translation quotient' -- percentage) of 73%. Others -- less so.
       One problem is, of course, in determining what the relevant prize to look at is, as it's hardly clear-cut for most languages. As we've frequently mentioned, the Germans have long preferred to give out author- (rather than single title-) prizes -- and The Millions' choice of the Ingeborg Bachmann Preis is a non-starter (that's an almost American Idol-like read-aloud prize -- and limited to short prose). Eventually the German Book Prize will fit the bill -- but that's only been around for the past few years. Still, we're almost flabbergasted to see how many off the 2006 longlist are appearing in English this year -- seven, that we know of: the books by Katharina Hacker, Thomas Hettche, Paulus Hochgatterer, Ingo Schulze, Peter Stamm, Saša Stanišic, and Ilija Trojanow. (And we have to admit some sense of trepidation at the way US/UK publishers seem to be leaping like lemmings at these longlisted titles, rather than looking around for themselves ... but then that's probably asking way, way too much.)
       Still, the TQs do seem to refelect general translation-trends, and the one that really sticks out is Russian, from which astonishingly little gets translated. Again, there are competing prizes, but the 'Russian Booker' probably is the one to look at first -- and as The Millions notes, quite a few of these titles sound like they'd be of considerable interest. Consider another, too: Ludmila Ulitskaya's 2001 winner, Казус Кукоцкого -- tranlsated into at least 13 languages, but not English (despite the fact that several Ulitskaya works have been translated, and that she's fairly well-known in the US/UK (well, for a post-Soviet Russian author ...) -- and those 900,000 copies sold in Russia surely should count for something too).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Translating Wang Anyi interview

       The Columbia University Press blog points us to PRI's The World's interview with Michael Berry 'about translating The Song of Everlasting Sorrow, Chinese author Wang Anyi’s acclaimed yarn about the allure of filmmaking and the city of Shanghai'.
       We should be getting to this sometime soon -- and Berry certainly sells it for all it's worth:

Song is a wonderful entry point into the world of contemporary Chinese literature, but it does much more than simply tell the reader things they "need to know about China." I think the book tells us things we need to know about the human condition, about relationships, desire, our dreams vs. the everyday, and the weight of time and history on the individual. The novel may be set in China, but this is truly one of the masterpieces of world literature (at least the original is, I can’t speak for the translation!) and really speaks to much larger themes.

       See also the Columbia University Press publicity page, or get your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk.

       P.S. Note that Columbia University Press is currently having a 'white sale' -- 'Save up to 80% on more than 1,000 titles'. Some good deals to be had here.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Procrastination lit

       In Procrastination Lit at Slate Jessica Winter looks at 'Great novels about wasting time' -- though she includes non-novels such as Geoff Dyer's Out of Sheer Rage.
       Lots of Thomas Bernhard, and also William Gaddis' Agape Agape.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Sales influence

       We find it hard to be anything but dismissive about this 'Best of the Booker'-competition, but looking at the Amazon.co.uk sales ranks for some of the shortlisted titles -- which surely haven't sold this well in ages -- does speak in (small) favour of this silly exercise. Sure, most of these books don't need the help, but it's nice to see new readers made aware of The Siege of Krishnapur, for example.
       Amazon.co.uk sales ranks, last we checked, for the shortlisted titles were:

• The Ghost Road by Pat Barker - 874
• Oscar and Lucinda by Peter Carey -- astonishingly, this title appears to have been out of print, this new edition (conveniently) set to come out any day now
• Disgrace by J.M.Coetzee - 264
• The Conservationist by Nadine Gordimer - 503
• The Siege of Krishnapur by J.G. Farrell - 341
• Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie - 115

       We also noted last week that Paul Verhaeghen's Omega Minor was awarded the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize -- and we were curious as to what effect on sales that would have.
       Several days later (after what was presumably an initial buying-flurry) it's still doing well at Amazon.co.uk: a sales rank of 1209, last we checked. But the prize doesn't seem to have influenced as many US buyers: there the sales rank was 23,987 last we checked (which was still up considerably from the 85,084 we found earlier in the day ...).
       It's worth mentioning that the Amazon-deals look like a pretty good deal right now: it's a fat book, and at $10.88 at Amazon.com and £6.99 at Amazon.co.uk (off a RPP of £9.99 !) ... well, that's more than reasonable.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Reader purchases

       Some of our readers occasionally purchase titles via our links to Amazon -- always much appreciated, since we get a commission on that, and every penny helps ! -- and we couldn't help but admire the audience we seem to attract when looking through the list of what had been purchased on Monday (we get the list of titles, number sold, price at which sold, etc. but -- don't worry ! -- no personal data).
       Beside the usual few English titles our users purchased bilingual texts in no less than three languages on Monday:

• Spanish: Life Is a Dream/La Vida es Sueno: A Dual-Language Book (see also our review of the Pedro Calderón de la Barca classic)
• Japanese: Breaking into Japanese Literature: Seven Modern Classics in Parallel Text
• Italian: Melancolia Poetica: A Dual Language Anthology of Italian Poetry 1160-1560 (Troubador Italian)

       And, to top it off, someone bought the Spanish-language version of Julio Cortázar's Cronopios and Famas.
       Yes, we are very pleased and proud of the audience we attract. !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Charlotte Roche interview

       We are impressed by the new Granta website, and especially what they're doing with their Online Only-space -- and we're not just saying that because they found Jonathan Derbyshire to say:

And, like any jobbing literary journalist, I couldn’t live without the Complete Review.

       Last month we mentioned the surprise German mega-bestseller by Charlotte Roche, Feuchtgebiete, and now Granta usefully offer an interview with her. We're still not too sure about that book, but .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Fortune Told in Blood review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Davud Ghaffarzadegan's Fortune Told in Blood.
       The rare piece of Iranian fiction from not too long ago (first published there 1996), by an author still active in Iran. And an interesting approach to writing about the Iran-Iraq war -- but a book that, in English, is being published very much into a vacuum.
       We're curious to see whether anyone else will have a look.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       2666 ARC

       Yes, we were growing green with envy, reading how Conversational Reading's Scott Esposito and ABC of Reading's Thomas McGonigle had received their Advance Reader's Copies of Roberto Bolaño's 2666. But, to our great joy, our own copy arrived yesterday -- and a lovely big, fat ARC it is !
       It's only due out in November, so we're in no rush to review it (or do you desperately need our coverage ?) and will try to set aside a suitable period for tackling the 898 pages -- though it is pretty hard to resist diving straight in.
       What can we tell you about it ? For a start, we like the promise of the epigraph, from Baudelaire:

An oasis of horror in a desert of boredom.

       Part one of the five-part novel is: 'The part about the critics' (tempting us further to start in on it already -- especially since the publisher's introductory remarks describe this as: "romantic farce").
       2666 was first published posthumously, and so there's both 'A note from the author's heirs' -- explaining that Bolaño left instructions for it to be published in five separate volumes, but that after his death everyone decided it was better to do it in one go --, as well as Ignacio Echevarría's 'Note to the first edition', explaining that decision more fully, as well as some other editorial matters (that: "There has been only the rare need to make minor changes and to correct some obvious errors", etc.).
       The ARC has a small picture on the back of the two versions of the text FSG plans to publish, the one-volume hardcover and three-volume paperback set, but the images are too small to really say much about the (hardcover) cover-image (beyond that it's a fairly dark and crowded painting) -- and while for now the author-name and title seem just to have been superimposed on the cover-images we like the look of the '2666' printed in large red numerals running top to bottom on the right hand side and down the spine. (But they should have the cover images up fairly soon at the publicity pages, surely (see the FSG pages for both the hardcover and the paperback-set) -- though what we're really looking for is the dedicated site they must be setting up for the book .....)
       Anyway, we probably won't be able to hold off until November, so you should find our full review-coverage up later in the summer; meanwhile, you can (and, might we suggest, really should) pre-order your own copies -- get the hardcover or paperback-set at Amazon.com (the US editions are now listed at Amazon.co.uk, but there must be a British edition in the making too, no ?) -- and the truly ambitious can, of course, get right to it by getting the (available now) Spanish edition.

       (Updated - 15 May): Chad Post has now also received his copy -- and posts pictures !

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       International Writers Festival (Jerusalem)

       Yet another International Writers Festival, this time in Jerusalem, where they're holding one through the 15th.
       An impressive list of authors, at any rate: aside from almost all the big-name Israeli authors the guests include: Javier Cercas, Nadine Gordimer, Lidia Jorge, Ismail Kadare, Andreï Makine, Ingo Schulze, and an assortment of American authors (Russell Banks, Jonathan Safran Foer, etc.)
       Haaretz has quite a bit of coverage, including David B. Green's lengthy look, Turning over a new leaf.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Doris Lessing's Nobel complaints

       As widely noted, Doris Lessing is complaining about winning the Nobel prize: as, for example, Andrew Hough reports in 'Nobel Prize was a bloody disaster': Lessing tells how winning award stopped her writing in The Independent:

Lessing, 88, whose works include the feminist classic The Golden Notebook and The Good Terrorist, said instead of pursuing her first love of writing, her life was constantly disrupted by media requests.

       Yes:

"All I do is give interviews and spend time being photographed," she told Radio 4's Front Row programme, in an interview to be broadcast tonight.

       Are we missing something ? She's complaining that all she does is give interviews -- in an interview ?
       What exactly is the problem here ? Of all the disruptions to one's life, surely this one is readily solved: just tell the media to go to hell and turn down all interview requests. (Sure, the pesky paparazzi are harder to keep at bay, but it's not like she's writing in public places where they have easy access to her, is it ?)
       You should be able to find the interview archived at the Front Row site (it aired Monday), at least for a while -- though we weren't able to open it and listen in (so we don't know if she didn't actually have a better explanation and complaint).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Blackout review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Gianluca Morozzi's Blackout.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Scientific literary studies ?

       In Measure for Measure in the Boston Globe Jonathan Gottschall argues that: 'Literary criticism could be one of our best tools for understanding the human condition. But first, it needs a radical change: embracing science'.
       Yes, apparently:

Class enrollments and funding are down, morale is sagging, huge numbers of PhDs can't find jobs, and books languish unpublished or unpurchased because almost no one, not even other literary scholars, wants to read them.

       But:

I think there is a clear solution to this problem. Literary studies should become more like the sciences. Literature professors should apply science's research methods, its theories, its statistical tools, and its insistence on hypothesis and proof. Instead of philosophical despair about the possibility of knowledge, they should embrace science's spirit of intellectual optimism. If they do, literary studies can be transformed into a discipline in which real understanding of literature and the human experience builds up along with all of the words.

       Hmmmm ....
       Are 'literary studies' worth saving ? Sure, there's something to be said for what he proposes -- but like anatomists happily dissecting cadavers, it seems pretty far removed from any joy of reading or anything like that .....
       We look forward to the sure-to-follow discussions.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Franschhoek Literary Festival

       The Franschhoek Literary Festival is coming up -- and this year that's where they'll be announcing the winners of the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, on the 18th; see also the Final Programme.
       For more on FLF 2008, see also Andrew Donaldson's Hoeked on books in The Times (South Africa).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       'Best of the Booker' shortlist

       The ridiculous 'Best of the Booker'-competition proceeds apace, as they've now announced the shortlist. (The only one of the titles we have under review is J.M.Coetzee's Disgrace.) Obviously, the public couldn't be trusted to winnow down the list to six finalists, so a panel of judges made the choice for them -- but they (you !) can now vote for the winner, if you care to.
       See also:

• Sir Salman Rushdie favourite as readers vote for Best of the Booker award by Dalya Alberge in The Times
• Rushdie aims for literary hat-trickas Booker marks 40th anniversary by Arifa Akbar in The Independent
• In the book prizes lottery, some classics shine by Sam Leith in the Daily Telegraph

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Publishing Mafia ?

       In writing about the (apparently soon to come) ouster of Random House head Peter Olson in Just Business, 'The fall of book publishing’s last don', in New York, Marion Maneker suggests:

If you want to understand book publishing, you need to think less Bloomsbury and more Gambino: The five big companies are like the five families. Imprints are crews with plenty of ambitious upstarts looking to make their bones. And every once in a while even a good earner has to get whacked to send a message.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       The Generals review

       The most recent addition to the complete review is our review of Per Wahlöö's The Generals.
       This 1965 novel is one of several he didn't write with his wife, Maj Sjöwall -- and hasn't quite endured as well as the Martin Beck series. Indeed, we have quickly added it to our most obscure books under review .....

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

       Indian publishing

       This week's Bibliofile-column in Outlook India can't offer actual sales figures, but does look at the number of copies of a variety of titles ordered by bookstores, as well as some print-run number:

Among the Big Three, Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth at 23,000 orders is way ahead of Patrick French’s biography of V.S. Naipaul, The World is What It Is (15,000). Salman Rushdie’s Enchantress of Florence is trailing in third place with 10,000 orders.

       But there are more popular authors:

Shobhaa De is not the mai-baap of Penguin for nothing: 40,000 copies of her latest Superstar India have gone into bookshops, and there are more waiting in the warehouse. Newcomer Aravind Adiga’s The White Tiger is trailing at 18,000 pre-orders.

       Meanwhile One night @ the call center-author Chetan Bhagat's forthcoming 3 Mistakes In My Life apparently has a record (for India) first-print-run of 60,000.

       For more on publishing in India, check out the impressive Contemporary Indian Literature in English and the Indian Market pages at the Open University -- a lot of material (which we still have to work our way through).

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Scottish publishing

       We mentioned that there were some rumbles of disappointment about the booksfromscotland.com site, and in Scotland On Sunday William Lyons takes a look at the escalating Scottish publishing's war of words, as:

a recent row surrounding the Government-backed quango set up to fund and promote Scottish publishing looks set to tear the industry apart and raises questions over the future of the sector. With claims of "staggering incompetence" and "bleeding cash" amid splits and resignations, the atmosphere among this small group of publishers has turned poisonous.

At the centre of the dispute is the funding of literature and publishing in Scotland. Or, as Hugh Andrew, owner of Polygon, puts it, "the lack of financial skills among those who spend the public purse".

Andrew's beef is with Publishing Scotland, a not-for-profit company formed to take responsibility for the representation and development of the publishing sector in Scotland.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

---

       Toni Morrison Q & A

       At Time Andrea Sachs collects 10 Questions for Toni Morrison -- and we're glad to hear that her writer-advice includes:

She should not only write about what she knows but about what she doesn't know. It extends the imagination.

(Posted by: complete review)    - permanent link -

go to archive

- return to top of the page -

© 2008 the complete review


Main | the New | the Best | the Rest | Review Index | Links