The Elegant Variation: LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS: PANEL REPORTS

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May 01, 2007

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS: PANEL REPORTS

Many, many thanks to Shauna McKenna for providing the following on-the-spot reports from last weekend's Los Angeles Times Festival Books.

The Future of Publishing

Moderator: James Atlas, president of Atlas Books and founding editor of the Lipper/Viking Penguin Lives Series
Panelists: Georges Borchardt: Co-founder and president of Georges Borchardt, Inc., a literary agency representing over 200 distinguished English-language writers. Sara Nelson: Editor-in-Chief of Publishers Weekly and author of the memoir So Many Books, So Little Time. Dana Gioia: Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and National Book Award winning poet. Charlie Winton: Chairman and CEO, Avalon Books

To begin, Atlas ticked off a list of the generally cited signs that the horsemen of the publishing apocalypse are on the way (cue Ride of the Valkyries); evolving technology, the squeeze of book review sections in even the most prominent newspapers, the viability of conventional distributors, etc. etc. Each panelist delivered his or her prognosis, with a general consensus that the way literary content is packaged and sold to readers needs to keep up with technology.

BORCHARDT: “The good old days were not all that good.” With wit and charm, Borchardt put the current crises of literary publishing in the larger context of a business that has never been particularly lucrative. A sign of hope is that international publishing has skyrocketed, but a sign of trouble is the low interest in books of young people.

NELSON: Claims that in spite of their apparently diminishing relevance, books remain central to how we think and relate to each other as a culture. Also noted the “conglomeratization” of the publishing business, with its attendant increase in expectations for a publisher’s rate of return.

GIOIA: Discussed results of the NEA’s “Reading at Risk” report, which evidences significant decrease in the numbers of Americans reading books. Feels that books are almost invisible in contemporary culture. Enumerated the competitors that the pursuit of reading faces, and warned that the “silent, measured critical response” to reading could be lost. Got on his fiery steed and challenged a television to a joust.

WINTON: The number of midsize publishers is decreasing, but the big technology companies are developing ways to sell content direct to consumer, which will then make them big players. Internet has upended the way books are sold via massively branching networks and, of course, Amazon. Winton seemed the most sanguine about how evolving technologies can be an agent of change in the business of publishing and deeper literacy, not necessarily destruction.

Q&A Highlight: Questioner suggested that the publishing industry is too civil, maybe people would care more about book review sections if there was a little heat, a little snark, some sizzle. In the panel’s only nod to the literary blogosphere, Nelson pointed out all that snark and nastiness is right there in the blogs. Niiiice. (See! Just like that.) She elaborated that it’s unwise to discount bloggers or pop culture reviewers, because the populist media is the voice of the target audience.

Litblogs: Words Online

Moderator: Tod Goldberg: Los Angeles blogger and author of several books, most recently Simplify.
Author/Blogger Panelists: Ron Hogan: Beatrice and Galleycat blogger, author of The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane!; Andrew Keen: Former Silicon Valley venture capitalist, blogger, author of Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet Is Killing Our Culture; Carolyn Kellogg: Publisher/podcaster of Pinky's Paperhaus

After threatening to deliver a lecture on barium in deference to the oversized periodic table behind the panelists, Goldberg led the group in a spirited conversation about whether the democratization of literary criticism is a bad thing.

Andrew Keen: It’s a bad thing to get people feeling like they’re entitled to free stuff.

Everyone Else: Andrew Keen! You so crazy!

Okay, there was a lot more to it than that. But there was no doubt that the group had its Simon Cowell, replete with accent and an air of vague irritation bordering on disdain. Ron Hogan mentioned early on the value of bloggers forcing traditional media outlets to put their game faces on, and that’s exactly what Keen required of the bloggers.

Keen’s overriding concern was with the absence of a sustainable business model in the blogosphere, and the problems inevitable for institutional media once the audience gets hooked on free content. As a corollary, when the institutions falter, the superiority that Keen claims for professionalism disintegrates. He claimed that a form of expression that anyone can do is so easily imitable that the risks of corporate corruption and abuse are huge, and the reader is vulnerable not only to some weak-ass literary criticism but out-and-out fraud.

Everyone Else: Booooo!

Highlights for me:

1. Hogan drew the distinction between a book enthusiast and a book reviewer, and when asked how the audience is supposed to recognize the quality criticism amidst the dreck, responded that we too often undervalue an individual’s bullshit detector.

2. Kellogg described the conversational nature of blogging, which adds a new dimension to criticism heretofore left to the dust-gathering correspondence of Bunny Wilson and his crew. (I’m paraphrasing.)

3. Hogan’s candor about the benefits for an individual writer in creating a readership online, even if that labor is unpaid at the outset. The many successes of LA’s own Elegant One and Maud Newton were cited as shimmering examples.

4. Kellogg begrudgingly admitting the relevance of business models, and defending the current lack of revenue in the blogosphere by saying there’s a “jungle” of business models being tried, and it’ll take time and patience while the chaos sorts itself out.

5. Goldberg’s charisma (TEV Note: Oh God, don't encourage the man.) and persistent wise-assedness, Kellogg rolling her eyes openly half the time Keen talked, Keen being generally a good sport about being the designated foil.

Shauna’s major WTF moment:

When a questioner asked the panelists if they thought a distribution model like E-music might work for literary content, Goldberg responded that there isn’t really actual content on the internet, and all the other panelists agreed that they don’t really like to read things on a computer.

And then they sat uncomfortably and realized what they were saying, and Ron Hogan nicely backpedaled and explained that it’s an issue with the technology for e-reading not being there yet as compared to iPods, and of course many literary journals have online components, etc. etc. Which was a nice save, but still, that collective shrug over the question of there being actual things to read online made my former online editor’s soul hurt just a little.

Additional LATFOB coverage can be found about town at BookFox, Pinky's, and more. Shauna McKenna is a fiction writer, essayist, and occasional literary shindig coordinator. She relocated to Los Angeles last October.

Posted at 12:01 AM in LAT Festival of Books | Permalink

Comments

I'll wait for the Times to put out the CD so I can double-check, but I honestly don't remember having to "backpedal" from anything like that position. I recall the question being specifically about distributing books online for use on electronic devices, and made roughly the point you describe--downloading MP3s has become nearly ubiquitous because the sound quality is, for most users with most speakers/headphones, not appreciably different than CD quality. The technology for reading an e-book as opposed to the printed page simply isn't there yet, and until it is, the e-book market isn't going to hit a tipping point.

Posted by: Ron | May 01, 2007 at 08:55 AM

Fair enough! I was somewhat disappointed by the silence in both panels on the topic of the literary content that is produced online everyday, which probably colored my reaction to your response in the Q&A. I was relieved to hear you giving credit to the writers and editors who are as much invested in that production as bloggers are invested in their literary criticism. I remember the question as being about literary content in general, but I'll readily admit my bias may have done me wrong.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable conversation to watch, and I'm grateful for the opportunity to see it. Thanks to all of you.

Posted by: shauna mckenna | May 01, 2007 at 09:26 AM

Thanks for providing a summary for the folks who couldn't attend to see all four of us sweating through our clothes...

I second Ron's response -- the original question was about a content provider like eMusic rising for books and I think I then asked the audience how many of them had ever read an eBook, the only hand belonging to a man in a brown shirt in the front. There is certainly a ton of literary content online now -- online journals like Smokelong Quarterly, for instance -- but there just isn't an online book market yet apart from those who've self published their novels online.

Posted by: tod goldberg | May 01, 2007 at 11:29 AM

I raised my hand! (Because I really did think she said "content.") I was also feverishly taking notes, and there was a delay. Did you guys see me? I was the one close to the front giving everyone the Larry David "I've got your number, you" eye.

I agree with everyone when they say that e-books are not in the same position as e-music, yet, but there's a heavy emphasis on the inevitability of that statement. One day in the not too distant future, we're going to have to have the conversation about whether people who are publishing and distributing books for free are creating a flattened literature, and whether that's a bad thing. We might as well consider the content already out there as the vanguard of that phenomenon, and discuss it in that light.

Posted by: shauna mckenna | May 01, 2007 at 02:03 PM

Oh, absolutely--and in the science fiction wing of the publishing industry, that conversation is well underway.

I did see you--I really wish I'd had more opportunity to talk with some of the audience members afterwards, although I was especially glad that I got to chat with the young minister who didn't really get a chance to elaborate her question as fully as she should have during the very end. What Katherine and her blog-ring are doing is an excellent example of the type of community that Carolyn was talking about in response to Andrew's repeated insistence on the profit motive.

Posted by: Ron Hogan | May 01, 2007 at 07:25 PM

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MY NOVEL

HARRY, REVISED - Get all the details here.

TOUR DATES

WORTHY READINGS

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."

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.

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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

May 01, 2007

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS: PANEL REPORTS

Comments

MY NOVEL

WORTHY READINGS

TEV DEFINED

RECOMMENDED

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism

SECOND LOOK

Categories

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

May 01, 2007

LOS ANGELES TIMES FESTIVAL OF BOOKS: PANEL REPORTS

Comments

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

THIS GUN FOR HIRE:
Reviews & Criticism