“When we were talking about Jamaica Kincaid's book See Now Then, it was difficult to ignore the strange reception the book was getting. The little gossipmongers Dwight Garner and Sam Sacks just couldn't bear not dredging up Kincaid's personal life, speculating that the divorce in the novel was identical to her divorce in real life, and telling her she should have kept the book in a drawer somewhere. Not liking See Now Then is a legitimate response to a book. It's a weird book, and prickly, and there were times I was convinced I didn't like it either, although I warmed to it. But there was something a little gross about those reviews. But it's so boring and trite to just call out Sexism!, isn't it? Because we know all the pathways that saying someone is being sexist opens up. They are narrow and limited and none of them end in good places. And it's hard to prove unconscious motivations. But I got a very interesting email from a reader, who would like to remain anonymous, but gave me permission to reprint. Hi, I’m enjoying your coverage of Jamaica Kincaid’s book and the attending, in my opinion, biased sexist press. It’s interesting that Junot Diaz's recent mediocre to poor story collection was a depiction of his relationships etc... (he’s copped to it in interviews) and the press/reviews mostly praised it as art, and nominated it for awards... The New York Times book reviewer even called the narrator Díaz’s alter ego! The narcissism and self-indulgence of those stories is epic... Whereas Kincaid is being called out for being self-indulgent, vindictive etc and her reviews have been terrible to mixed. I also wonder whether Diaz’s position as a Pulitzer judge has influenced his books’ reception by reviewers and the vitriol towards Kincaid more weighted because Kincaid’s ex is a public figure (vs. the relative anonymity--and their deafening silence in the stories--of Díaz's women). I love this email. And I thank its sender for allowing me to reprint it.”
—From Bookslut, an examination of sexism in the reviews of Jamaica Kincaid and Junot Díaz’s recent books.“I started mulling over the idea of niceness in women's poetry after three different men -- from different generations, who knew me in different capacities -- read the manuscript of my first book and each responded with some variation of, I really like your poems, but they're not very nice. I can't imagine Eliot's editor telling him that The Waste Land was great, but it wasn't very nice -- niceness is, predominantly, a cultural expectation of women.”
—Courtney Queeney, “The Kings are Boring: Some Thoughts on Women’s Poetry,” published on Bookslut
“ Like so many girl poets, I thought I would be famous, and I thought I would be dead, and here I am, none of those things.”
—Elizabeth Bachner, “Plathophilia: Rereading Sylvia,” published on Bookslut“In general, poetry has the potential to change society. I refuse to ask any less of it.”
—Josh Cook, “The Problem With American Poetry,” published on Bookslut"Judge me for my own merits"
Judge me for my own merits, or lack of them, but do not look upon me as a mere appendage to this great general or that great scholar, this star that shines at the court of France or that famed author. I am in my own right a whole person, responsible to myself alone for all that I am, all that I say, all that I do. It may be that there are metaphysicians and philosophers whose learning is greater than mine, although I have not met them. Yet, they are but frail humans, too, and have their faults; so, when I add the sum total of my graces, I confess I am inferior to no one.
—The French Englightenment scientist Emilié du Châtelet writing to Frederick the Great, quoted in Jenny McPhee’s review in Bookslut of Nancy Mitford’s Voltaire in Love, a book about the productive and scandalous relationship between Châtelet and Voltaire.
Victor LaValle
I can’t fathom how only one type of writing—whether realism, the fantastic, romance, mystery, etc.—can ever summarize life on its own. Using all of it—within the same book, sometimes within the same sentence—seems like the only sensible way to try and capture the whole spectrum of human experience.
- Victor LaValle interviewed at Bookslut
“I can't think of any contemporary writer more committed to exploring the spit between literature's sacredness and its fallibility. This is most obvious in his treatment of fiction. Reality Hunger famously wrote off traditional storytelling, attempting to elevate the lyric essay to the central role once held by the novel. But, if the fragments of How Literature Saved My Life really do offer a window into how Shields thinks, it's clear that his mind carries around quite a bit of fiction. The book is full of reflections on novelists, ranging from Herman Melville, to Denis Johnson, to J.D. Salinger, to Sarah Manguso, and others.”
—Bookslut’s Guy Cunningham reviews David Shields’s How Literature Saved My Life“The freeing sensation that comes with burning your old life down to the foundations fades surprisingly quickly. At the first sign of rain, you will miss that old roof, inadequate as it might have been. And so there were nights, lying sleepless in a bed I do not own, staring at a painting I did not choose, when I requested the presence of William James. And he would come, the older, more confident version, the one who could see his life backwards, in a three-piece suit and smoking a pipe. (I do not know where the pipe came from, it's possible I'm confusing him with my father.) Sometimes he would just sit on the edge of my bed and squeeze my foot through the blanket until I got back to sleep. At other times, we would talk. Mostly about the loneliness that is so deep it leads you into conversation with people who are dead.”
—Jessica Crispin, aka The Bookslut, “Channeling William James in Berlin”, brilliantly, at The Awl.
Interview about LACONIA
Here is an interview I did with Stephen Boyer about my book LACONIA: 1,200 Tweets on Film as well as my thoughts on cinema and my work in general.
You can read it here: “Via The Screen”.
You can also read another interview I did with Mairead Case in Bookslut.
Old Hat: Reading Toward a Philosophy of the Act
bookslut.comOh gosh. You know how you sometimes read something and instantly recognize yourself—your own fears, your own obsessions, your own desires—in the writer’s lines? I am guessing this is how a lot of people feel about Cheryl Strayed.
Well, it’s exactly how I feel about this essay Elizabeth Bachner wrote in the recent issue of Bookslut.
On another floor of the library there’s an exhibit of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s manuscripts, pages he actually touched and created, they’re a few inches away from me under glass, I want to get my fingers on them. Now I know how to rewire my own nervous system and live in ecstasy, but whatever. Yesterday a soldier from my country shot sixteen people, mostly through their skulls, he burned some of their bodies, some of them were children. In a city near there, U.S. soldiers have been burning piles of sacred books, what is it with book burning? People are starving and murdering, raping and being raped and getting murdered, dying of painful illnesses, and I can find manuals everywhere for free explaining the mysteries of existence, so shouldn’t I be getting some perspective someday, ever? From books, or from life, or from somewhere?
Please read the whole thing. It’s beautiful, and it’s about physics and manuscripts and identity and time and Shelley:
There was always more than one Percy Bysshe Shelley. After he drowned, people would see him walking along underneath the window, not wearing any coat or hat. And a month or so before that, Shelley had nightmares about their house collapsing and flooding — and in waking life, not in his dream, he encountered himself on the terrace. “How long do you mean to be content.” Shelley asked Shelley.
GO. READ IT.
FJORDS vol. 1, by Zachary Schomburg
bookslut.comI reviewed Zachary Schomburg’s latest book for this month’s Bookslut. Spoiler alert: I really liked it. I think it may actually be impossible to not like a book that begins with the line
From the very beginning I knew exactly what would kill me.
You should probably check out all of the new issue, because there is some great stuff there.
