« THE NEXT BIG THING | Main | ANSWERING SOME QUESTIONS »

May 03, 2005

WE SUSPECT HE WON'T BE SIGNING US UP

L.A. Observed continues its coverage of Steve Wasserman's departure from the L.A. Times Book Review, linking to this item by Steve Zeitchik in PW:

Sources say Wasserman actually officially resigned some time ago but had agreed to stay on through the paper's Festival of Books, which took place the weekend before last. Insiders point to a new management structure that was instituted last fall and changes that resulted from the Tribune Company buying the newspaper as factors that contributed to Wasserman's unhappiness. Rutten, who emphasized the choice "was entirely Steve's," called Wasserman's tenure "remarkable" and cautioned against taking for granted many of the changes he said Wasserman brought to the paper, primarily his introduction of more serious essays on serious books.

Since learning of Wasserman's departure, the paper has been interviewing internal and external candidates, according to Rutten, who added that "There's probably never been a time in the history of the paper when the masthead of the paper were as committed to book reviewing, to book coverage, and all that goes with it." Rutten said many of Wasserman's changes would continue. "I don't think one should expect to see any of the strengths of the current review--which are considerable--frittered away."

Oh, please.  Fritter at will.  Insiders also posit that SW is considering a new career as a literary agent ... then, at least, the white suit will start to make some sense.

Posted at 11:14 AM |

| | Pin It! | |

Comments

The comments to this entry are closed.

TEV DEFINED


  • The Elegant Variation is "Fowler’s (1926, 1965) term for the inept writer’s overstrained efforts at freshness or vividness of expression. Prose guilty of elegant variation calls attention to itself and doesn’t permit its ideas to seem naturally clear. It typically seeks fancy new words for familiar things, and it scrambles for synonyms in order to avoid at all costs repeating a word, even though repetition might be the natural, normal thing to do: The audience had a certain bovine placidity, instead of The audience was as placid as cows. Elegant variation is often the rock, and a stereotype, a cliché, or a tired metaphor the hard place between which inexperienced or foolish writers come to grief. The familiar middle ground in treating these homely topics is almost always the safest. In untrained or unrestrained hands, a thesaurus can be dangerous."

SECOND LOOK

  • The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

    Bs

    Penelope Fitzgerald's second novel is the tale of Florence Green, a widow who seeks, in the late 1950s, to bring a bookstore to an isolated British town, encountering all manner of obstacles, including incompetent builders, vindictive gentry, small minded bankers, an irritable poltergeist, but, above all, a town that might not, in fact, want a bookshop. Fitzgerald's prose is spare but evocative – there's no wasted effort and her work reminds one of Hemingway's dictum that every word should fight for its right to be on the page. Florence is an engaging creation, stubbornly committed to her plan even as uncertainty regarding the wisdom of the enterprise gnaws at her. But The Bookshop concerns itself, finally, with the astonishing vindictiveness of which provincials are capable, and, as so much English fiction must, it grapples with the inevitabilities of class. It's a dense marvel at 123 pages, a book you won't want to – or be able to – rush through.
  • The Rider by Tim Krabbe

    Rider_4

    Tim Krabbé's superb 1978 memoir-cum-novel is the single best book we've read about cycling, a book that will come closer to bringing you inside a grueling road race than anything else out there. A kilometer-by-kilometer look at just what is required to endure some of the most grueling terrain in the world, Krabbé explains the tactics, the choices and – above all – the grinding, endless, excruciating pain that every cyclist faces and makes it heart-pounding rather than expository or tedious. No writer has better captured both the agony and the determination to ride through the agony. He's an elegant stylist (ably served by Sam Garrett's fine translation) and The Rider manages to be that rarest hybrid – an authentic, accurate book about cycling that's a pleasure to read. "Non-racers," he writes. "The emptiness of those lives shocks me."

Categories

Subscribe to this blog's feed