dogsbody

12 January 2009

Quick lit [and alt.cult] hits around the web.



'And the Beats were beaten to death by their acolyte'; Steve Finbow on William Burroughs & Jack Kerouac: "I call for a radical re-editing of all Keroauc's work, a regularization of characters' names, a Proustianization of his canon into one long, driven, gloopy novel of the soul." / The most overrated cultural icon of the late 20th century has just come grinding back into town, words trailing like bloody tendrils, gears shifting lugubriously, voice stentorian as ever. Death warmed up. Jonathan Jones on William Burroughs / 'The New Regime', Tony O'Neill & N Frank Daniels / The Brutalists are featured in Suso / Lee Rourke talks to Kit Maude: "Realism itself is a construct, as unreal as anything else. In Everyday, I'm also writing about fiction, the sheer impossibility of it. I read a lot of Blanchot, he has this metaphor of writers being like Orpheus going down into the underworld. He says that they want to bring something back, something that existed before language, but they always look back. They have to look back because they're writers." / 'that night with the green sky', music by the Mystery Books, lyrics & video by "new lit boy" Tao Lin / 'Hook, line and stinker', crappy lyrics / Ed Champion talks to graphic novelist Dean Haspiel, co-author of 3:AM's Graphic Novel of 2008: "I drew characters based on my studio mates and friends and/or actors that Jonathan [Ames] suggested. Some of the sex scenes were fun to draw because I got my girlfriend to pose with me for the 'sake of making art.'' / The Nation on Rilke's Notebooks of of Malte Laurids Brigge: "The Notebooks comes from the epicenter of Modernism, discordant and fragmentary. And its reactions to the contradictions of its moment, like those of many other works of romantic spleen, could uncharitably be called overreactions. Its famous set pieces of urban alienation come early. Young Malte, arrived in Paris at age 28, wants to test his sense of vocation against the city. Like many young writers, he may have confused being a poet with being a Parisian. "I am learning to see," he assures himself, though his identity crisis as an urban newcomer gets in the way. His vision is physical; he claims that it bounces back from the pavements and shop windows and breaks open new spaces within him. But when he tries to describe what he sees, Malte projects his angst onto the men and women around him. He sees multitudes every day; the crowds shock him, and he begins to find in their faces signs not only of urban wear and tear but of uncertainty. Each person, he perceives, has several faces. Because he is a poet, he makes his metaphor literal, observing that "there are people who wear the same face for years; naturally it wears out, gets dirty, splits at the seams, stretches like gloves worn during a long journey." Other people put on a new face every day, using them up, until they realize in the middle of life that they have wasted their beauty. So the axis of urban misery is stretched between the cheerless passants and the decadent flâneurs." [via 3QD]



Adam Kirsch on Kafka & Amerika: "Most writers take years to become themselves, to transform their preoccupations and inherited mannerisms into a personal style. For Franz Kafka, who was an exception to so many rules of life and literature, it took a single night. On Sunday, Sept. 22, 1912, the day after Yom Kippur, the 29-year-old Kafka sat down at his desk and wrote 'The Judgment,' his first masterpiece, in one all-night session. 'Only in this way can writing be done,' he exulted, 'only with such coherence, with such a complete opening out of the body and the soul.'" / 'A very European hero', The Economist on Tintin: Any exploration of Tintin's hold on continental affections must start not with culture, but with history. For all the talk about morality, France's 1949 law on children's books had ideological roots. It was pushed by an odd alliance of Communists, Catholic conservatives and jobless French cartoonists, determined that French children should be reading works imbued with "national" values. Pascal Ory, a historian at the Sorbonne university (author of Mickey Go Home. The de-Americanisation of the cartoon strip), writes that the main aim of the law—which, remarkably, remains in force today, tweaked in the 1950s to add a ban on incitement of ethnic prejudice—was to block comics from America. / The BBC's guide to the cult of Tintin 'Of course Tintin's gay, ask Snowy,' Matthew Parris says / American Scientist review Lewis Carroll in Numberland: "After the popular success of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Queen Victoria is said to have asked to be sent a copy of Lewis Carroll's next book. As Wilson recounts, this is how the Queen came to receive a copy of An Elementary Treatise on Determinants. She should have felt honored, because it is arguably the best example of Dodgson's mathematical writing." / Good to see Ellis Sharp back, reviewing Malcolm Lowry's The Voyage that Never Ends over at ReadySteadyBook / Bookslut take in George Orwell



Peter Wild is guest blogging over at Powells this week / 'Have you ever thrown a book across a room?' / R&R, Karin Elizabeth's book reviewing self-portraiting series [and more on the project in JPG Magazine] / The Ladybird Book of the Policeman: "This policeman has spotted some people dogging in a park. One is a young blonde lady with red lips and very small clothes." / How it Works: The Computer [via things] / Over 200 Weird Tales covers in two minutes [via Weekend Stubble] / The School of Life / Vintage paperbacks & Books with nice covers, flickr groups / Pelican of the week, an occasional series [scroll down] / The Endsheet, a book design weblog / A tour of Eamonn McCabe's Writers' Rooms / "He was a great reader was Monsieur Melmoth. One rarely saw him without a volume in his hand." Oscar Wilde's book collection [via Maud Newton] / The Guardian review Poe, a Solaris anthology inspired by the master / Nate Tyree, author of the very excellent Mr Overy is Falling, is serialising his new novel on-line / Good to see Pulp.net back / Cathi Unsworth has a new website [thanks to Alan Kelly for the link] / Finally, check out the very pretty Handheld Editions & The Greying Ghost Press.

[images: Hand Shadows to be Thrown upon the Wall, Henry Bursill, 1859]