Recently in Lit Bits Category

You write War and Peace. And you say to your self, "Damn, I just wrote War and Peace."  And then you say to yourself, "You know what? I don't think I'm done. I think I'll keep writing. 'Cause it just ain't War and Peace until it's long enough to stretch to the moon."  But years later, some industrious fellow publishes that first draft, and then...lit fight!

The Unbearable Length of Time it takes to get recognized in your own homeland these days, at least for Milan Kundera, author of "The Unbearable Lightness of Being".  But better late than never.  Interesting footnote in the article, Kundera hasn't allowed his more recent stuff sold in Czech Republic, because of worries about "the quality of the translation."  I'm having a hard enough writing in only one language, so I can imagine the difficulty of porting your stories between two or three.

The vikings are finally invading Spain, but they're being nicer about it than they were to my ancestors in Northern Ireland.  It's a literary invasion this time.  Books are so much nicer than bloody hands.

Following up on an earlier post about Aussie literature and its fading place for Australian youth, I see that the Australian government will be beefing up Aussie lit offerings in schools.

In a town in Texas a teacher faces possible criminal charges for assigning a Cormac McCarthy book to high schoolers. The book, "Child of God", is often assigned in AP classes. The article reports quite a bit of grassroots support for the teacher, who is well liked and has been sent on paid leave.  Nice to see that stereotypes of small town Texas are being challenged by athletes wearing armbands in support of an English teacher. Perhaps the locals have discovered that nothing in any Cormac McCarthy book is any more lurid or graphic than the weekly plotlines of "CSI", "Criminal Minds", or a host of other prime time tv programs...

What? You haven't had enough fall color yet? Shame on you. Redeem yourself below.



At the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, a jewel of a spot this time of year.  Meanwhile, at Carver Park Reserve, the cattails and rushes have gone brown and fall quickly slips away.

The Nobel for literature is on tap for October 11, and some names being tossed around include Philip Roth and Italian novelist Claudio Magris. Of those mentioned in the article, I'll confess I have only read Roth, so I will, in my own provincial way, root for him.

The Salt Lake Tribune does one of the better articles in response to a sky-is-falling report about how many Americans read literary fiction.  This one makes note that publishers are emphasizing more nonfiction because men are becoming averse to fiction; I have a simpler answer to why men aren't reading fiction as much.  College grads are far more likely to read fiction. Men are falling behind, drastically, in college participation. A study published 5 years ago had women well into the majority of college students; by now, this trend is likely far higher.

I spent much of my childhood in beautiful Santa Cruz Country, California, and was sad to read that one of its best bookstores has been vandalized by homophobes who targeted the gay literature section.  How sad--not to mention basically stupid--do you have to be to a.) spend your time vandalizing gay literature in bookstores and b.) do it in Santa Cruz County, California, a place where the banishing of gay books (which we have to assume is a goal of these morons) WILL NEVER, EVER HAPPEN. I mean seriously. I realize none of us thought these people were geniuses, but Santa Cruz? Isn't that like trying to scare all the Christian bookstores out of Alabama?

Jonathon Coe over at the Guardian celebrates classics of British literature - written by women, and recalls discovering them at a time when the canon was still a male country club.

Oprah says go read Marquez.

Lit fight! Boris Pasternak's son doesn't like how his father's book, Dr. Zhivago, came to be published and feels that the book's champion, Sergio D'Angelo, got waaaay too much of the profits.  Long story short, the younger Pasternak had his revenge by managing to put a scathing critique of D'Angelo's actions in a rather unusual place--the epilogue to D'Angelo's new memoir. Without him knowing.  Imagine putting out a memoir, and  then some guy who really doesn't like you inserts twenty pages that amount to "you suck."  Wow.

Stay tuned for Sunday fall color pics from central Minnesota.

Aaah, the monstrous fiction class has subsumed the blog. So it goes.  But the literary world scribbles on.  Today we have Zoe Williams, in Guardian, smacking down V.S. Naipaul.

In book form, VS Naipaul's new-blossoming cantankerousness sounds quite droll. It will be quicker if I paraphrase. Jane Austen? Sucked. Anthony Powell? Bilge. Evelyn Waugh? Rubbish. Here is a person, you think, who has lived a long time in maybe a rather close atmosphere and has decided to open a window and enjoy himself. But then he went on the Today programme and, through the power of radio, revealed that this is not a person enjoying himself after all.

Williams also manages to work the term "sodding" into the article, which should be appreciated all by itself.

The Amazon region of Brazil apparently has quite a literary scene and you probably don't know that.

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, some people have nothing better to do than try to ban award-winning books.

And then there was my weekend...back up on the North Shore of Lake Superior again, this time a bit further up with a look at the fall colors just inland.



Above: Grand Marais, Minnesota, view from Artist Point. Note the low water level of Lake Superior, exposing rock previously underwater. Lake Superior is in the midst of the lowest water levels in over 80 years.


Another view of low water at Artist Point.





Above: Two views of fall color at Moose Mountain, in Lutsen, Minnesota on the North Shore of Lake Superior.

James Frey got a new book deal. And yes, this time he's going to try actually calling it fiction. And as no publicity is bad publicity, some of the original fraud will definitely benefit the promotion of this book.  Also with AP here.

In other news. the study of literature is heading downhill fast in France, where students look to sociology or economics as their preferred areas of focus. "Xavier Darcos said that France was in danger of becoming a nation of unemployed sociologists unable to master speech or thought."  Beware the unemployed sociologists!

Literature for Kossacks does Borges, here.

I enjoy the Lee Goldberg blog, and this week he contemplates the common writer predicament: he thinks he sucks.

It's not an advantage that can continue forever; with the longevity of Narnia, and the potential longevity of Potter, the bookshelves will be well stocked with English fantasy for years to come.  Kids will want the old standards, and they will want new stories too, which Americans and Canadians and New Zealanders and Australians and Irish should be happy to provide.

The always rewarding "Literature for Kossacks" series over at Daily Kos has a wonderful write-up on Emily Dickinson, here.

Found this recent article on Bookslut - why do MFA programs ask students to specialize in a genre? Good question. My program emphasizes multi-genre writing, but in the end asks for a thesis in only one.   Maybe we know that most people are good at basically one genre and suck in everything else?  Maybe forcing students to specialize weeds out less serious candidates? My answer is that MFA programs are easier to administer when people are assigned specific literary roles, but I like to write fiction, so as usual I'm pulling that out of my ass.

The New Pages blog wonders if many of these literary anthologies that call for submissions are legit.

Google is trying to weasel out of responsibility for its decision to self-censor in China by arguing that censorship should be considered a barrier to trade--and therefore be part of international agreements that regulate trade.   While Google's point isn't without merit--using trade structures could be one way to combat censorship--the idea of taking freedom of speech and making it a trade issue rather than a fundamental issue of civil rights seems ominous to me.

Boys do better in reading when they have female teachers? Weird.

Off in my world, I spent the weekend up on Minnesota's North Shore. Beautiful day, and we even stopped for pie...



Above: Split Rock Lighthouse on Lake Superior, Minnesota.



Above: view of Minnesota's North Shore (Lake Superior).