The Elegant Variation:

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August 31, 2005

WEDNESDAY MORNING PAPERS DIDN'T COME

We're making a little road trip today, so it seems like we're likely to hew to the one-post lump model for the rest of this week. Among the things we think you might find vaguely interesting ...

* Mysterious clues as to the next Litblog Co-op choices ...

* Paul Haggis, Oscar nominated screenwriter of Million Dollar Baby, has been tapped to adapt Casino Royale as the next James Bond film. (On a related point, Forbes weighs in on the subject of the next Bond car ... )

* Speaking of Agent 007, like many others we're increasingly fascinated with the postings by this latest mysterious blogging literary agent. (Hey, if you're ready this, double-O, how about an RSS feed?)

* Robert Macfarlane doesn't think much at all of Slow Man, and says so (but we think he's all wet).

* More coverage of Edinburgh.

* In news sure to cheer Robert Birnbaum, The Oregonian takes a look at Jim Harrison's novella, The Summer He Didn't Die.

"The Summer He Didn't Die" is an even richer stew. It has a wonderful novella featuring Brown Dog, the shambling, big-hearted Indian from Michigan's Upper Peninsula who's Harrison favorite recurring character; an adept satire called "Republican Wives" written in the voice of three women who slept with the same man; and the beautiful coda "Tracking" that isn't really a novella but is a condensed third-person rewrite of Harrison's memoir "Off to the Side."

* The now Kipen-less SF Chronicle looks at the new Edmund Wilson biography.

* Is it just us, or does it seem like Fateless is getting almost daily attention these days? Here's the Guardian's take on the new translation. Elsewhere, the Guardian remembers Israeli poet Dalia Ravikovitch.

* Although we're not quite down with the "Ireland's greatest fiction writer" bit (ahem!!), we do think the world of John McGahern, and point you to this Guardian interview, in which he discusses his forthcoming memoir. Which seems as good a note as any on which to depart. A demain ...

Posted at 12:01 AM in Litlinks | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

August 30, 2005

TUESDAY AFTERNOON IS NEVER ENDING

Well, we're making progress, however slight but there's still a huge amount of work demanding our attention around Chez TEV, not the least of which includes organizing our final thoughts and the next crop of Litblog Co-op nominees. So, once again, we toss out links somewhat melange-like though we'll pop in and out during the day, internet connections permitting.

* Although we'll probably annoy some friends, we can't help but notice that every time Rick Moody takes to the press these days, it's for some defensive purpose or another. First was his recent Believer piece about how the nasty press couldn't leave the NBA awards. Now there's this piece in the Guardian about his band ... yes, his band. The author doth protest too much.

* Scott Martelle turns in a nice profile on Jonathan Kozol for the LA Times.

* The reviews of J.M. Coetzee's Slow Man are starting to trickle in. Writing for the Village Voice, Benjamin Strong says "it confronts by analogy [Coetzee's] own predicament ... "

... that of the obsolete dissident. Until recently, the problem for Coetzee, born in Cape Town in 1940 of English and Dutch extraction, had been how to write honestly as a white man about apartheid. A former computer scientist, analytical by default, he never flinched (in his studies of colonial literature and censorship) at placing his own ancestors' history under the gaze of his microscope.

* Amos Oz has received the Goethe Prize.

* Scott Rudin has acquired the film rights for Benjamin Kunkel's Indecision.

* The new interviews posted over at Loggernaut include talks with Daniel Alarcon and James Longenbach.

* [NOTE - OBNOXIOUS POP UPS ALERT] John LeCarre is one of the names being considered for the new James Bond novel.

* Shalimar the Clown (which finallly showed up here this week) is reviewed in Time Asia.

* Tasmanian author and poet Margaret Scott has died.

* The Boston Globe looks at a title we've been eyeing hungrily in our TBR pile, Robert Dessaix' Twilight of Love, which "seeks to confront timeless concerns -- love, aging, mortality -- through the prism of Turgenev's life and writings."

More later. Or not. We're kinda capricious that way.

Posted at 12:01 AM in Litlinks | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

August 29, 2005

MONDAY GRABBAG

As we mentioned, we're fighting spotty connections, so we're going to hand over the links and skeddadle while we've still got a connection ...

* We yawn, therefore we are. More Bret Easton Ellis, this time courtesy the L.A. Weekly. (This is the same sort of annoyance we feel during playoffs when you can't turn around without Laker, Lakers, Lakers. OK, badboy has a new book out. We got it.)

* One of our litblogging brethren - the might Ron Hogan - has given an interview to Richmond.com.

* The folks at Unbridled Books have added a new "From the Publishers" feature to their website, in which they plan to "sound off now and again on issues that either inspire or rankle us in the raggedy bookworld we so hope to impact."

* A lengthy travel piece in the LA Times - which we no longer receive - looks at Dublin as a literary destination (and namechecks you-know-who).

Posted at 10:52 AM in Litlinks | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)

TWO WORDS, MR. KIPEN: "BROOKS BROTHERS"

After yesterday's torture ride (55 miles with 4500 feet of climbing in 111 degrees - not that we're bragging or anything), we made a stop at David Kipen's farewell party - guests included D.J. Waldie, Kate Gale and Adrienne Crew - as he prepares to depart for Washington, D.C. to assume the post of Director of Literature for the NEA. For those of you who've wondered what Mr. Kipen looks like when he's at home, here's a fairly representative look:

The highlight of the afternoon was a lively debate between the guest of honor and one of the attendees about whether Gravity's Rainbow is superior to V. (Kipen, a master of all things Pynchonian, opts for the former; his guest made a case for the latter.) He further advised that if, 20 years from now, the whole country wasn't reading Pynchon, he will have considered his tenure a failure.

The story circulating the party was that at the end of his orientation in the halls of DC, he gamely asked if those present had any advice to help smooth his transition. Apparently, a gentleman present is said to have remarked, "I have two words for you, Mr. Kipen - Brooks Brothers." Even if it's not true, it should be ...

We've mentioned before that we first met Kipen on a flight back from BEA, when we were clutching a copy of The Irresponsible Self, which caught his attention. We've been pals ever since and he's been largely responsible for easing our way into the world of L.A. Literati. He's been generous with his time, open to impositions and just a generally all-around mensch. He's smart, passionate, driven, charming - if anyone can reverse Reading at Risk, he could very well be the man. We'll miss him but we wish him every success and we plan to hit him up for a Three-Minute Interview very soon ...

Posted at 10:27 AM in Local Heroes | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)

TECH WOES

We're having intermittent connectivity issues this morning, so we're doing our best to post but it's likely to be a hit and run operation today. In the meantime, we're pleased to report Kate Atkinson is suffering from no such problems and is up and posting at the Litblog Co-op. Go avail yourself of a rare chance to pose a question to a Whitbread Prize Winner ...

Posted at 09:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

MUMBLE WHAT?

Monday. Summer. Late start. Yes, familiar refrain of excuses but we had an exhausting Sunday (we know it's not supposed to work that way) - why, we haven't even had time for the Sunday papers yet! We will back here before lunch with some literary items of marginal note, and a brief dispatch (with photographic evidence) from David Kipen's going away party, which we attended Sunday afternoon.

In the interim, we direct you with pride to the Litblog Co-op home page where, barring unexpected technical difficulties, Kate Atkinson should be taking your questions. (If not, don't tell us - we don't wanna know.)

Back soon.

Posted at 12:01 AM in Housekeeping | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

August 26, 2005

COMING ATTRACTIONS ...

If you'd like a sense of the reviewing style of newly annointed LATBR editor David Ulin, you can check out today's Newsday, where he reviews the new Henry Roth biography.

The question all this raises is why a writer so overtly self-reflective should need a biography. What can a biographer tell us that Roth cannot? To his credit, Kellman addresses that dilemma from the outset: "What is left," he asks, "for biography to say about a man who wrote hundreds of articulate pages about himself?"

The answer, of course, is plenty - "Mercy of a Rude Stream" ends in 1927 - yet "Redemption" can't help but exist in the shadow of Roth's work. Although Kellman does a nice job of tracing the author's lost years, he never quite gets at the inner life, the psychological tumult of his subject's world. This is especially true when it comes to Roth's relationships with his wife, Muriel, whom he credited with saving him, and his sons Jeremy and Hugh, who grew increasingly distant as they got older. In many ways, this suggests the limitations of biography, which must imagine a life from the outside, rather than the other way around. At the same time, it also highlights Roth's ultimate achievement: to use literature as a means to reconstruct himself. That's a tricky process; for all the power of "Call It Sleep," "Mercy of a Rude Stream" is a more uneven effort, by turns brilliant and overwrought. Yet if "Redemption" has anything to tell us, it's that even this is something of a miracle, given what Roth had to overcome.

Posted at 02:46 PM in LATBR Thumbnails | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY

So this Sunday, August 28 will mark the 19th anniversary of our arrival in the City of Angels. With two suitcases and three grand, we showed up expecting L.A. to fall at our feet. Insert your own predictable punchline here. But we stuck with it and managed to carve ourselves a relatively small and harmless niche as a writer.

In honor of that anniversary, we're offering this week's giveaway - 78 Reasons Why Your Book May Never Be Published and 14 Reasons Why It Just Might by former Macadam/Cage editor Pat Walsh - to the first reader who emails us with the subject line "78 Reasons". One qualification - you must be a transplant. Please note where you came from and when you moved to L.A. in your email. Good luck!

UPDATE: Congratulations to Ken Rudman of South Pasadena, whose parents moved him here from Connecticut when he was six. Your book is on the way. Have a great weekend, folks.

Posted at 12:35 AM in Personal | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

REMINDER - KATE ATKINSON AT LBC

Don't forget to stop by the Litblog Co-op Monday, when Kate Atkinson holds court and takes your questions. It'll be the Grand Finale of the inaugural selection before we get down to the business of our second choice.

Posted at 12:30 AM in Litblog Co-op | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

L.A. EVENT - STARTING AND RUNNING YOUR OWN PRESS (826LA)

On August 28, from 6-9pm, 826LA will offer an adult seminar for aspiring writers, “Starting and Running Your Own Press,” featuring founders, editors, and marketing directors from some of the country’s small independent presses.

Panelists will discuss the practicalities involved with starting and running a successful publishing company. Each panelist comes to 826 with a unique background in the business. No details will be spared, and all pertinent secrets shall be revealed. Panelists include Pilar Perez (McSweeney’s, formerly of Smart Art Press and Perceval Press), Matthew Greenfield (Cloverfield Press), Dan Cullinane (Alyson Books), Bob Self (Baby Tattoo), and Jay Brida and Jeffrey Dinsmore (both of Contemporary Press).

Because independent presses are typically run on tight budgets, we are offering this panel at a significantly reduced price: $10, payable at the door. Please reserve a spot by emailing us at mailto:[email protected] All proceeds benefit 826LA.

Posted at 12:25 AM in Events | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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."

RECOMMENDED

Nobility of Spirit: A Forgotten Ideal by Rob Riemen

This slim volume by the president and founder of the Nexus Institute, a European-based humanist think-tank, stands as the most stirring redoubt against the ascendant forces of know-nothingness that we've come across in a long time. A full-throated, unapologetic defense of the virtues of Western Civ – in which "elite" is not and never should be a dirty word – this inspiring exploration of high art and high ideals is divided into three sections: The first looks at the life of Riemen's great hero Thomas Mann as a model for the examined life. The second imagines a series of conversations from turning points in European intellectual history, populated with the likes of Socrates, Nietzsche and others. The final section, "Be Brave," is nothing less than an exhortation to dig deep, especially in times of risk. The notion of nobility of the spirit might strike some modern ears as quaint but it seems more desperately necessary than ever before, and there are worse ways to read the accessible Nobility of Spirit than as a crash refresher in the Great Thinkers, free of academic jargon and cant. As a meditation on what is at stake when the pursuit of high ideals is elbowed aside by the pursuit of fleeting material gain, however, Nobility of Spirit might well be the most prescient book we've yet read on what's at stake in the current election cycle and in the developing global situation. Agree or disagree with Riemen's profound, ambitious and high-minded plea, you will be thinking about his words for a long time. It's been ages since a work of non-fiction moved us this way. Read it. Discuss it. Argue about it.
Netherland by Joseph O'Neill

With rave reviews from James Wood, Michiko Kakutani and Dwight Garner, it might not seem like we need to tell you to drop everything and go read Netherland, but we are telling you, and here's why: The way book coverage works these days, everyone talks about the same book for about two or three weeks, and then they move on and the book is more or less forgotten. Whereas a berth here in the Recommended sidebar keeps noteworthy titles in view for a good, long time, which is the sort of sustained attention this marvelous novel deserves. A Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness, it's an unforgettable New York story in which the post 9/11 lives of Hans, a Dutch banker estranged from his English wife, and Chuck Ramkissoon, a mysterious cricket entrepreneur, intertwine. The New York City of the immigrant margins is unforgettably invoked in gorgeous, precise prose, and the novel's luminous conclusion is a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging. Our strongest possible recommendation.
Dictation: A Quartet by Cynthia Ozick

"History," wrote Henry James in a 1910 letter to his amanuensis Theodora Bosanquet, "is strangely written." This casual aside could easily serve as the epigraph of Cynthia Ozick's superb new collection Dictation, which concerns itself with lost worlds evoked by languages -- languages which separate and obscure as readily as they bind. It can be risky to look for connective tissue between stories written years apart and published in magazines ranging from The Conradian to The New Yorker. But themes of deception, posterity, and above all, the glory of language -- at once malleable and intractable -- knit together this quartet, recasting the whole as the harmonious product of Ozick's formidable talent. Read the entire review here
Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

Now, on the one hand, you scarcely need us to alert you to the existence of a new J.M. Coetzee novel, or even to have us tell you it's worth reading. But we can tell you - we insist on telling you that Diary of a Bad Year is a triumph, easily Coetzee's most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace. Formally inventive, the book intertwines two narratives with the author's own Strong Opinions, a series of seemingly discrete philosophical and political essays. The cumulative effect of this strange trio is deeply moving and thought provoking. It's increasingly rare in this thoroughly post-post-modern age to raise the kind of questions in fiction Coetzee handles so masterfully - right down to what is it, exactly, that we expect (or need) from our novels. It's telling that, for all of his serious pronouncements on subjects ranging from censorship to pedophilia to the use of torture, it's finally a few pages from The Brothers Karamazov that brings him to tears. Moving, wise and - how's this for a surprise - funny and lightly self-mocking, Diary of a Bad Year might well be the book of the year and Coetzee is surely our essential novelist. We haven't stopped thinking about it since we set it down.
The Indian Clerk by David Leavitt

David Leavitt's magnificent new novel tells the story of the unlikely friendship between the British mathematician G.H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, mathematical autodidact and prodigy who had been working as a clerk in Madras, and who would turn out to be one of the great mathematical minds of the century. Ramanujan reluctantly joined Hardy in England - a move that would ultimately prove to his detriment - and the men set to work on proving the Riemann Hypothesis, one of mathematics' great unsolved problems. The Indian Clerk, an epic and elegant work which spans continents and decades, encompasses a World War, and boasts a cast of characters that includes Bertrand Russell, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Lytton Strachey. Leavitt renders the complex mathematics in a manner that resonates emotionally as well as intellectually, and writes with crystalline elegance. The metaphor of the prime number – divisible only by one and itself – is beautifully apt for this tale of these two isolated geniuses. Leavitt's control of this dense, sprawling material is impressive – astonishing, at times – and yet despite its scope, he keeps us focused on his great themes of unknowability and identity. The Indian Clerk might be set in the past but it doesn't resemble most so-called "historical fiction." Rather, it's an ageless meditation on the quests for knowledge and for the self – and how frequently the two are intertwined – that is, finally, as timeless as the music of the primes. (View our full week of coverage here.)
Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris

Joshua Ferris' warm and funny debut novel is an antidote to the sneering likes of The Office and Max Barry's Company. Treating his characters with both affection and respect, Ferris takes us into a Chicago ad agency at the onset of the dot-bomb. Careers are in jeopardy, nerves are frayed and petty turf wars are fought. But there are bigger stakes in the balance, and Ferris' weirdly indeterminate point of view that's mostly first person plural, underscores the shared humanity of everyone who has ever had to sit behind a desk. It's a luminous, affecting debut and you can read the first chapter right here.
Christine Falls by Benjamin Black

Coming to these shores at last, John Banville's thriller, written under the nom de plume Benjamin Black, has drawn rave reviews across the pond since it first appeared last October. Those who feared Banville might turn in an overly literary effort needn't worry. Influenced by Simenon's romans durs (hard stories), Banville unspools a dark mystery set in 1950s Dublin concerning itself with, among other things, the church's trade in orphans. At the heart of the book is the coroner Quirke, a Banvillean creation on par with Alex Cleave and Freddie Montgomery. Dublin is rendered with a damp, creaky specificity – you can almost taste the whisky.
The Paris Review Interviews, I by The Paris Review and Philip Gourevitch

Scanning our Recommended selections, one might conclude we're addicted to interviews, and one would be correct. If author interviews are like crack to us, then the Paris Review author interviews must surely be the gold standard of crack (a comparison Plimpton might not have embraced). The newly issued The Paris Review Interviews, Volume I (Picador) rolls out the heavy hitters. Who can possibly turn away from the likes of Saul Bellow, T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway, Jorge Luis Borges, Dorothy Parker, Robert Gottlieb and others? The interviews are formal and thoughtful but never dry and can replace any dozen "how-to" books on writing. What can be more comforting than hearing Bellow, answering a question on preparations and conception, admit "Well, I don't know exactly how it's done.” The best part of this collection? The "Volume I" in the title, with its promise of more volumes to come.
The Dead Fish Museum: Stories by Charles D'Ambrosio

The best short story collection we've read since ... well, certainly since we've started this blog. And we might even say "ever" if Dubliners didn't cast such a long shadow. The short story is not our preferred form but D'Ambrosio's eight brilliant stories are almost enough to convert us. Defy the conventional wisdom that short story collections don't sell and treat yourself to this marvel. (We're especially partial, naturally, to "Screenwriter".)
The Mystery Guest by Grégoire Bouillier
*Now in Paperback*

What would you do if the woman who’d left you high and dry ten years ago called out of the blue to invite you to a party without any further explanation? If you’re French, you’d probably spend a lot of time pondering the Deeper Significance Of It All, which is exactly what Grégoire Bouillier does for the 120 hilarious pages of The Mystery Guest. This slim, witty memoir follows Bouillier through the party from hell, and is a case study in Gallic self-abasement. Before it’s all done, you’ll set fire to any turtleneck hanging in your closet and think twice before buying an expensive Bordeaux as a gift. But fear not – just when it seems that all is, indeed, random and pointless and there is no Deeper Significance, salvation arrives in the unlikely form of Virginia Woolf, and the tale ends on a note of unforced optimism. Parfait.
Ticknor by Sheila Heti

When George Ticknor's Life of William Hickling Prescott was published in 1864, it received rapturous notices, and reviewers were quick to point out that the long-standing friendship between Prescott and Ticknor made the latter an ideal Boswell. Sheila Heti has pulled this obscure leaf from the literary archives and fashioned a mordantly funny anti-history; a pungent and hilarious study of bitterness and promise unfulfilled. As a fretful Ticknor navigates his way through the rain-soaked streets of Boston to Prescott's house ("But I am not a late man. I hate to be late."), he recalls his decidedly one-sided lifelong friendship with his great subject. Unlike the real-life Ticknor, this one is an embittered also-ran, full of plans and intentions never realized, always alive to the fashionable whispers behind his back. Heti seamlessly inhabits Ticknor's fussy 19th-century diction with a feat of virtuoso ventriloquism that puts one in mind of The Remains of the Day. Heti's Ticknor would be insufferable if he weren't so funny, and in the end, the black humor brings a leavening poignancy to this brief tale. But don't let the size fool you — this 109-page first novel is small but scarcely slight; it is as dense and textured as a truffle.
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers by Vendela Vida

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you and yes, we are recommending a Believer product. Twenty-three interviews (a third presented for the first time) pairing the likes of Zadie Smith with Ian McEwan, Jonathan Lethem with Paul Auster, Edward P. Jones and ZZ Packer, and Adam Thirwell with Tom Stoppard make this collection a must-read. Lifted out of the context of some of the magazine's worst twee excesses, the interviews stand admirably on their own as largely thoughtful dialogues on craft. A handful of interviewers seem more interested in themselves than in their subjects but in the main this collection will prove irresistible to writers of any stripe - struggling or established - and to readers seeking a window into the creative process.
The Sea by John Banville

John Banville's latest novel returns him to the Booker Prize shortlist for the first time since 1989's The Book of Evidence. In The Sea, we find Banville in transition, moving from the icy, restrained narrators of The Untouchable, Eclipse and Shroud toward warmer climes. Max Morden has returned to the vacation spot of his youth as he grieves the death of his wife. Remembering his first, fatal love, Morden works to reconcile himself to his loss. Banville's trademark linguistic virtuosity is everpresent but some of the chilly control is relinquished and Max mourns and rages in ways that mark a new direction for Banville - and there's at least one great twist which you'll never see coming. Given the politicized nature of the British literary scene, Banville's shot at the prize might be hobbled by his controversial McEwan review but we're rooting for our longtime favorite to go all the way at last. UPDATE: Our man won!
Here Is Where We Meet by John Berger

We've been fans of Booker Prize winner John Berger for ages, and we're delighted to have received an early copy of his latest work, Here is Where We Meet. In this lovely, elliptical, melancholy "fictional memoir," Berger traverses European cities from Libson to Geneva to Islington, conversing with shades from his past – He encounters his dead mother on a Lisbon tram, a beloved mentor in a Krakow market. Along the way, we're treated to marvelous and occasionally heart-rending glimpses of an extraordinary life, a lyrical elegy to the 20th century from a man who - in his eighth decade - remains committed to his political beliefs and almost childlike in his openness to people, places and experiences. There's no conventional narrative here, and those seeking plot are advised to look elsewhere. But Here is Where We Meet offers a wise, moving and poetic look at the life of an artist traversing the European century from a novelist whose talent remains undimmed in his twilight years.
Home Land by Sam Lipsyte

In his recent TEV guest review of Home Land, Jim Ruland called Sam Lipsyte the "funniest writer of his generation," and we're quite inclined to agree. We tore through Home Land in two joyful sittings and can't remember the last time we've laughed so hard. Lipsyte's constellation of oddly sympathetic losers is rendered with a sparkling, inspired prose style that's sent us off in search of all his prior work. In Lewis Miner's (a.k.a Teabag) woeful epistolary dispatches to his high school alumni newsletter ("I did not pan out."), we find an anti-hero for the age. Highly, highly recommended.

SECOND LOOK

The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald

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

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."

The Elegant Variation

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

August 31, 2005

WEDNESDAY MORNING PAPERS DIDN'T COME

August 30, 2005

TUESDAY AFTERNOON IS NEVER ENDING

August 29, 2005

MONDAY GRABBAG

TWO WORDS, MR. KIPEN: "BROOKS BROTHERS"

TECH WOES

MUMBLE WHAT?

August 26, 2005

COMING ATTRACTIONS ...

ANNIVERSARY GIVEAWAY

REMINDER - KATE ATKINSON AT LBC

L.A. EVENT - STARTING AND RUNNING YOUR OWN PRESS (826LA)

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

A Literary Weblog. A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog "Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

August 31, 2005

August 30, 2005

August 29, 2005

August 26, 2005

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE: Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

A Literary Weblog.
A Guardian Top 10 Literary Blog * A Forbes "Best of the Web" Pick * A Los Angeles Magazine Top Los Angeles Blog
"Really brave ... or really stupid" - NPR

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism