LISNews: Librarian Blog Since 1999

The latest review at The Quarterly Conversation is My Little War by Louis Paul Boon, published by the Dalkey Archive. Here's a bit of what our reviewer Billy Thompson thought of it:

Stylistically, My Little War feels more like a journal than a novel. It is a series of short entries (not even stories) that recount things like having a conversation with a meat inspector, remembering a kid who got picked on, and talking to a kid who can’t speak very well. The accounts, all titled and told in the first person, are brief, none longer than 3 or 4 pages, and they read as much like things Boon read or overheard as they do things he experienced. No one story builds upon another. No plotlines unfold. And no characters feel knowable. In fact, many of the characters are simply referred to as What’s-his-name. Without a discernible arc or strong characters, My Little War confounds expectations. . . .

I was halfway through this slim volume after one sitting, and I could not say I was enjoying it—but then a funny thing started happening . . .

Dan Green on the "Surfiction" of Raymond Federman:

Where Barth and Coover laid bare the devices of fiction allegorically (J. Henry Waugh as "author" of his fictional baseball world) or through the occasional narrative disruption (the "author" making his presence known, as in Barth's "Life-Story"), Federman's fiction was more direct and unremitting in its undermining of narrative illusion. With its prose freed from the constraints of typographical bondage, climbing up, down, across, and around the page, and its "stories" of writers attempting to tell a story without quite succeeding, Federman's fiction as represented in Double or Nothing (1971) and Take It or Leave It (1976), still his most important books, challenged not only reader's preconceptions about fiction but also basic assumptions about reading itself.

Federman rejected both "metafiction" and "experimental fiction" more broadly as labels accurately describing his work, instead coining the term "surfiction" to sum up what he--as well as other innovative writers, such as Ronald Sukenick--was after. In his essay, "Surfiction--Four Propositions in Form of an Introduction," Federman defines the term . . .

Dan Green on the "Surfiction" of Raymond Federman : Where Barth and Coover laid bare the devices of fiction allegorically (J. Henry Waugh as "author" of his fictional baseball world) or through the occasional narrative disruption (the "author" making his presence known, as in Barth's "Life-Story"), Federman's fiction was more direct and unremitting in its undermining of narrative illusion. With its prose freed from the constraints of typographical bondage, climbing up, down, across, and around the page, and its "stories" of writers attempting to tell a story without quite succeeding, Federman's fiction as represented in Double or Nothing (1971) and... Scott Esposito

Interesting new column at The Guardian that is an "occasional series about the most influential literary theory." So they start with some Barthes:

La nouvelle critique was flavour of the month, much like its culinary counterpart, nouvelle cuisine, albeit more of a mouthful. Critics-cum-thinkers such as Barthes himself – who was equally at home at the lofty Collège de France or down the trendy Le Palace nightclub – achieved bona fide celebrity status. Their works often became bestsellers in spite of their demanding and iconoclastic nature. Soon, NME journalists were peppering their articles with arcane references to Baudrillard while Scritti Politti dedicated a postmodern ditty to Jacques Derrida. The whole movement seemed as provocative, and indeed exciting, as Brigitte Bardot in her slinky, sex kitten heyday. Its defining moment was the publication of a racy little number called "The Death of the Author".

As if mimicking one of its central themes, Roland Barthes's article first featured in an American journal in 1967: the original (an English translation of a French text) was thus, in effect, already a copy. With a nice sense of historical timing, it appeared in the critic's homeland in the quasi-insurrectionary context of the 1968 student protests. As it was only anthologised much later (first in Image-Music-Text in 1977 and then in The Rustle of Language in 1984), the essay was photocopied and distributed samizdat-fashion on campuses all over the world, which enhanced its subversive appeal.

Great start. The series looks promising.

Interesting new column at The Guardian that is an "occasional series about the most influential literary theory." So they start with some Barthes: La nouvelle critique was flavour of the month, much like its culinary counterpart, nouvelle cuisine, albeit more of a mouthful. Critics-cum-thinkers such as Barthes himself – who was equally at home at the lofty Collège de France or down the trendy Le Palace nightclub – achieved bona fide celebrity status. Their works often became bestsellers in spite of their demanding and iconoclastic nature. Soon, NME journalists were peppering their articles with arcane references to Baudrillard while Scritti... Scott Esposito

I really can't be reading anything but Best Translated Fiction books at the moment, but this is the sort of thing to make me want to devise a Your Face Tomorrow reading plan (a la Infinite Summer) to be ready when the judging is over. From a Marias sighting on his current U.S. tour: That digression is a hallmark of Marías's writing and is sure to whittle away some of his readers, but rewarding for most. It was also a topic of Marías's talk with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library, where, among other things, Marías acknowledged that... Scott Esposito

I really can't be reading anything but Best Translated Fiction books at the moment, but this is the sort of thing to make me want to devise a Your Face Tomorrow reading plan (a la Infinite Summer) to be ready when the judging is over. From a Marias sighting on his current U.S. tour:

That digression is a hallmark of Marías's writing and is sure to whittle away some of his readers, but rewarding for most. It was also a topic of Marías's talk with Paul Holdengräber at the New York Public Library, where, among other things, Marías acknowledged that the sword (readers will know the sword) is a nod to Cervantes. On digression, Marías remarked that "Time doesn't give time to exist" and that novels give you time back. In real time, for example, after a long night of discussion, you may remember only a single moment, but the novel gives you the duration of the evening you never have in real life.

I believe this is along the lines of what Jordan Anderson is getting at in his Marias essay at The Quarterly Conversation that begins with the paragraph:

The writings of Marcel Proust and Javier Marías are concerned with the contrast of finite human memory against nearly infinite time. They lay bare a tragic fact of a human existence: we compare the limitations of our own memories to the ceaseless expanse of time and space surrounding them. Proust’s and Marías’s works also constantly involve deliberation over the extent to which we can understand the past, and they represent that past via language and the degree to which can we know either ourselves or others. Both authors might suggest that what we can know of any of these things is an extremely limited amount, if it is any amount at all.

Interesting article from The New Republic's new literary site The Book (truly inspired name), which I'm sure everybody has heard about by now. In the flurry of accolades that invariably accompany a new publication by Munro—it is now a cliché to compare her to Chekhov—one can easily lose sight of the fact that her fiction (quite unlike that of the great Russian master, incidentally) focuses almost exclusively on “the lives of girls and women,” as the title of her lone novel put it. This is not necessarily a flaw, but it is worth examining what exactly makes women the subject... Scott Esposito

Interesting article from The New Republic's new literary site The Book (truly inspired name), which I'm sure everybody has heard about by now.

In the flurry of accolades that invariably accompany a new publication by Munro—it is now a cliché to compare her to Chekhov—one can easily lose sight of the fact that her fiction (quite unlike that of the great Russian master, incidentally) focuses almost exclusively on “the lives of girls and women,” as the title of her lone novel put it. This is not necessarily a flaw, but it is worth examining what exactly makes women the subject of her concentrated attention, and what this focus says about where they stand in the world according to Munro. Women’s lives, it seems to me, are more interesting to Munro than the lives of men because they are messier—not simply more difficult (though certain wry remarks here and there remind us of the social and political conditions that do often conspire to make women’s lives more difficult than men’s), but more inclined to chaos, and more demanding of the development of a certain sort of ingenuity to manage that chaos. “How terrible is the lot of women,” muses Sophia Kovalevsky, watching a mother with an injured child on a train, and thinking of her own fight for her place as a female mathematician; and if this statement is too black-and-white to be acceptable as a maxim for the other stories in this volume, most of them populated by characters who are, at the very least, comfortable and well fed, it nonetheless has a certain relevance to their lives.

This provides a perfect explanation of why commercial publishing will rarely be the first to publish truly innovative fiction. They're talking about literature-in-translation here, but it might as well be any kind of fiction that doesn't conform to market expectations: On a more commercially-minded list like Putnam’s, a book is more likely to be judged strictly on its potential to appeal to US readers. “I’ve always worked for very overtly commercial houses,” says Kahan. “None of the houses I’ve worked at have a mandate to go out and search for world authors, but we’ve certainly been able to publish some... Scott Esposito

This provides a perfect explanation of why commercial publishing will rarely be the first to publish truly innovative fiction. They're talking about literature-in-translation here, but it might as well be any kind of fiction that doesn't conform to market expectations:

On a more commercially-minded list like Putnam’s, a book is more likely to be judged strictly on its potential to appeal to US readers. “I’ve always worked for very overtly commercial houses,” says Kahan. “None of the houses I’ve worked at have a mandate to go out and search for world authors, but we’ve certainly been able to publish some of them, and publish them well, using exactly the same formula as we use for our English language authors. About 30% of my authors are not American — a fair number of them are from the UK, which is the same language but a different culture. We’re able to make these people who are not Americans work in the American market using pretty much the same marketing and the same kind of packaging. You have to find the right book that is going to appeal to the audience that your imprint serves.”

Norton, true to its heritage as an independent publisher of serious literary titles, has more of a cultural mission, though in the end the criteria that determine what Weil publishes in translation are not so different from the rest of his list. “Norton’s had a commitment to translations forever,” Weil recounts. “Polly Norton used to translate Rilke herself in the 1930s, so Norton knows how to do translated books. But you still have to be very careful assessing the market. I think it’s the same with any book, it’s just a lot harder.”

Now first, no respect to Norton, which is a wonderful press and also distributes wonderful presses like Dalkey and New Directions. And, heck, no disrespect to Putnam either, which after all is doing what it needs to do to stay afloat in a difficult market. (Which is pretty much always if you're publishing literary fiction.) The marriage between art and business is always problematic, and you've pretty much got to accept that fact.

Nonetheless, what comes across pretty clearly here is that the smart business decision is to not publish anything that doesn't already fit into a particular market segment. And that neatly sums up why your average commercial press isn't going to be breaking in innovative fiction very frequently. That job goes to non-profit publishing and smaller presses who are willing to take more risks and toss business sense to the wind.

Of course there are exceptions. Vintage broke Tom McCarthy into the American market with Remainder, a book that would certainly qualify as innovative. Although it's worth noting that Remainder was already a big success in England, which made it a lot easier for Vintage to take a risk on.

And there are occasions when interesting literature can be marketed well:

Weil’s strategy is to pick prestige projects that he can turn into literary events. ”I signed up the complete works of Isaac Babel and it took me years to put that together, and that was a huge success about 8-9 years ago. [Or] this book The Greek Poets which I commissioned eight years ago, half of the 700-800 page book is Greek poetry which has never appeared before in English. There’s a 2000 year tradition of Greek poetry which no one knew about. I love that book. I think in a year I’ll be at 10,000 copies of a $40 book. I did a big fat book and you have to pay attention to it. Then I can separate the book into little books. I’m going to be living happily ever after with these Greek poets.”

Granta has a video interview with Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o. They did it in honor of the fact that they're excerpting his new memoir, Dreams in a Time of War , in their forthcoming "Work" issue. (Thiong'o's book, is included on my Books to Watch for in 2010 post.) Memoirs aren't totally my thing, although I might make an exception for Thiong'o, since his most recent, epic novel, Wizard of the Crow , was one of my favorite reads of 2006. In fact, I wrote an essay on it in a long-ago issue of The Quarterly Conversation. John Updike's... Scott Esposito

Granta has a video interview with Kenyan novelist Ngugi wa Thiong'o. They did it in honor of the fact that they're excerpting his new memoir, Dreams in a Time of War, in their forthcoming "Work" issue. (Thiong'o's book, is included on my Books to Watch for in 2010 post.)

Memoirs aren't totally my thing, although I might make an exception for Thiong'o, since his most recent, epic novel, Wizard of the Crow, was one of my favorite reads of 2006. In fact, I wrote an essay on it in a long-ago issue of The Quarterly Conversation. John Updike's review/essay covering Wizard in The New Yorker is also pretty good, and it overviews Thiong'o's highly interesting personal story as a dissident in Kenya (which I'm guessing isn't covered in the memoir, since it's about his childhood).

It's a long time in coming, you know. Here's Susan Sontag in 1975: Geoffrey Movius: In one of your recent essays on photography in The New York Review of Books, you write that “no work of imaginative literature can have the same authenticity as a document,” and that there is “a rancorous suspicion in America of anything that seems literary.” Do you think that imaginative literature is on the way out? Is the printed word on the way out? Susan Sontag: Fiction writers have been made very nervous by a problem of credibility. Many don’t feel comfortable about doing it... Scott Esposito

It's a long time in coming, you know. Here's Susan Sontag in 1975:

Geoffrey Movius: In one of your recent essays on photography in The New York Review of Books, you write that “no work of imaginative literature can have the same authenticity as a document,” and that there is “a rancorous suspicion in America of anything that seems literary.” Do you think that imaginative literature is on the way out? Is the printed word on the way out?

Susan Sontag: Fiction writers have been made very nervous by a problem of credibility. Many don’t feel comfortable about doing it straight, and try to give fiction the character of nonfiction. A recent example is Philip Roth’s My Life as a Man, a book consisting of three novellas: the first two are purportedly written by the first-person narrator of the third one. That a document of the writer’s own character and experience seems to have more authority than an invented fiction is perhaps more widespread in this country than elsewhere and reflects the triumph of psychological ways of looking at everything. I have friends who tell me that the only books by writers of fiction that really interest them are their letters and diaries.

Despite what a reasonable person might assume after reading that first question, the interview actually turns out to be extremely good.

If this is the sort of thing you like, you'll find a lot of it here. As a model of tact and a talisman against kitsch, Sebald's shot-silk tapestries of document and dream remain indispensable. And I will never forget that tact in action, on the day that I first met him at UEA for an interview when his ghost-crowded, visionary record of a walk down the Suffolk coast, The Rings of Saturn, appeared in English. I remember the ominous postcard of Brueghel's "Fall of Icarus" on his office door; his sardonic gaze around the modernist utopia of the Sainsbury... Scott Esposito

If this is the sort of thing you like, you'll find a lot of it here.

As a model of tact and a talisman against kitsch, Sebald's shot-silk tapestries of document and dream remain indispensable. And I will never forget that tact in action, on the day that I first met him at UEA for an interview when his ghost-crowded, visionary record of a walk down the Suffolk coast, The Rings of Saturn, appeared in English. I remember the ominous postcard of Brueghel's "Fall of Icarus" on his office door; his sardonic gaze around the modernist utopia of the Sainsbury arts centre; his disdain for the concrete ziggurats that roasted students in summer and froze them in winter; his fascination with the old photos trawled from markets and junk-shops that acted as a spectral commentary in his books, and his wry compassion for these long-lost figures, marooned in the past: "We're dead. Can you do something about it, please?" Max could, and did.

Myself, I find that a tad too pretentious (and purple), although there are a few interesting bits about Sebald in the article if you're willing to parse the verbiage.

At The Quarterly Conversation we've just published George Fragopoulos's review of Landscape With Dog: And Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos. Landscape is a collection that I myself enjoyed this year, and I was pleased to see it make the Best Translated Book Award Longlist this year. Here's aquote from George's review: There is in Sotiropoulos’s fiction a tendency to draw attention to its own naked surfaces, its almost flat prose, a Modernist ethos one can trace back to Cubism, or even further back to Oscar Wilde’s claim that only shallow people do not judge by appearances. In a Nietzschean sense... Scott Esposito

At The Quarterly Conversation we've just published George Fragopoulos's review of Landscape With Dog: And Other Stories by Ersi Sotiropoulos.

Landscape is a collection that I myself enjoyed this year, and I was pleased to see it make the Best Translated Book Award Longlist this year. Here's aquote from George's review:

There is in Sotiropoulos’s fiction a tendency to draw attention to its own naked surfaces, its almost flat prose, a Modernist ethos one can trace back to Cubism, or even further back to Oscar Wilde’s claim that only shallow people do not judge by appearances. In a Nietzschean sense of value reversal, surface is argued to be just as important as any supposed depth. But these revelatory glimpses, it should be noted, are not of the sublime, metaphysical kind—there is a stark materialist streak in Sotiropoulos. Consider “The Exterminator,” a story about an unnamed writer on a Greek island looking for a semblance of serenity in which to write her book

Right now I'm in the midst of Rex by Jose Manuel Prieto as I read my way though the finalists for the Best Translated Book Award. As it happens, this book has quite a bit to recommend, but right here I want to focus on a certain dichotomy of Prieto's that I find very intriguing. The narrator of Rex simply idolizes Proust. He loves him so much that he won't even say Proust's name: he just calls him the Writer. And he thinks that everything knowable in the world can be found within In Search of Lost Time . It's... Scott Esposito