"... many critics and editors, especially male ones, make a fetish of "ambition," by which they mean the contemporary equivalent of novels about men in boats ("Moby-Dick," "Huckleberry Finn") rather than women in houses ("House of Mirth"), and that as a result big novels by male writers get treated as major events while slender but equally accomplished books by women tend to make a smaller splash." [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Feb 24, 2009 - 95 comments

A wonderful obituary in the NYT for Grace Paley, who died yesterday at her home in Thetford Hill, Vt. She was 84.
posted by jokeefe on Aug 23, 2007 - 17 comments

"[M]y writing's not making a distinction between physical/muscular action and mind action or between events of history and minute events between people." -- Leslie Scalapino. Leslie Scalapino is an American poet associated with the language poetry movement. -- How2 Special Feature on Scalapino. -- Excerpt from The Forest is in the Euphrates River. -- Audio links to Scalapino reading from and discussing her work. -- Another audio link, to Scalapino reading from her book The Pearl. -- Excerpts from The Tango. -- Scalapino's Nov. 11 2006 reading at The Poetry Project in NYC. -- Scalapino is the daughter of controversial Berkeley scholar Robert Scalapino, who founded Berkeley's Institute for Asian Studies. -- Scalapino defends her father. -- Scalapino co-edited a volume of poets against the U.S. interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. -- Scalapino's discussion of "relation of writing to events" with Judith Goldman.
posted by jayder on Oct 29, 2006 - 6 comments

Thomas Pynchon Paper Dolls Something light because, yes, it's the run-up to the November 21st release of Against the Day, the new 1000 page doorstop from Thomas Pynchon. The Modern Word is using the time to update their already vast Pynchon site. Good luck. (A whole lot of other paper dolls previously.)
posted by OmieWise on Oct 27, 2006 - 37 comments

An interview with John Updike on Terrorist, his most recent novel. Some reviews: Kakutani, Donohue (USAToday), and fellow novelist Amitav Gosh (Wapo).
posted by bardic on Jun 9, 2006 - 31 comments

Today is the anniversary of the famous Hatrack case, in which H.L. Mencken was arrested for selling indecent literature in Boston. (Herbert Asbury, the author of the Hatrack story, was largely forgotten, except for this incident, until Scorsese made his novel in Gangs of New York.) The case was just one episode in the career of an American literary giant, reporter, columnist, and editor. Gore Vidal said, "Mencken is a nice antidote. Politically, he is often right but seldom correct by today's stern standards." This is perhaps the best website devoted to Mencken, with extensive links. Particularly recommended are The Hills of Zion, part of his coverage of the Scopes trial; and his obituary savaging William Jennings Bryan. If you've never read Mencken it's almost impossible to convey how well-written, incisive and funny his writing really is.
posted by OmieWise on Apr 5, 2005 - 18 comments

The Ladder is a website devoted to the writer Henry James (1843-1916). It comprises electronic editions of a selection of James’s works and also
* a textual note on the source and any amendments required during editing
* annotations of the text explaining such things as references to real persons and places, references to other fiction by James, or in in his notebboks
* a summary and a detailed (chapter by chapter) synopsis of the plot, so you can easily find passages you remember, by what happens
* a bibliography including original publications, subsequent reprints
Interestingly enough, lately more than a few writers seem to have a bit of James-mania: in June, Colm Tóibín published "The Master", a portrait of James recovering from his humiliating failure as a playwright. Now comes "Author, Author", by David Lodge, which is about James' humiliating failure as a playwright as well. These in turn arrive on the heels of Emma Tennant's "Felony", a novel about James' near-romance with Constance Fenimore Woolson, and Alan Hollinghurst's "The Line of Beauty", a BookerPrize-winning novel in which James plays an important off-the-stage role.
posted by matteo on Nov 1, 2004 - 12 comments

James Branch Cabell's Jurgen: A Comedy of Justice. One of the many treasures at Documenting the American South. Mike Keith's James Branch Cabell Page (Mike Keith has also performed and recorded an obscure symphony based on Jurgen). Owlcroft's overview of Cabell's work.
posted by wobh on Jan 4, 2004 - 4 comments