MONDAY MARGINALIA - THE EMBARRASSMENT OF RICHES EDITION

So, this happens to us all the time.  We're away for a while, we fall a bit behind here and next thing you know, we're drowning in items to share.  Invariably, an all-too-familiar sloth sets in, and many of these nuggets fall to the wayside.  Not this time, however.  Today, we empty out everything we've saved up - an early spring cleaning, if you will - and bring you up to date.  So settle in, this one will probably last you a few days ... Onward:

* Frederick Forsyth, who usually writes about violence and intrigue from afar, found himself closer to the action than usual.

* Colm Toibin has caused quite the stir, with his declaration that writing is no fun and he's in it for the money.  (Although, having met the mischievous Toibin a few times, we wonder about the context; it's easy to imagine him having some fun here.)  Other chime in, including AL Kennedy and John Banville.

* We're unutterably weary of all the first novel prizes and prizes for best writer under 12 and the rest, so needless to say, we find the SFC Literary Prize - which will see Michael Chabon, Heidi Julavits, Jonathan Lethem, Ben Marcus, and Ayelet Waldman awarding a $50,000 prize for a fourth published work of fiction - refreshing as all hell.  Assuming anyone ever gets to publish fourth novels in the future ...

* The Telegraph on Graham Swift's essays:

We know all this because in Making an Elephant the author has consented to lift the lid a bit. An anthology of new essays and old, this is the closest Swift will stray to a memoir. Each piece is diligently introduced in the unassertive, even tentative style Swift reserves for non-fiction gigs. We find him interviewing and being interviewed by his writer pals, mulling on his early career, recalling entanglements with the filmmakers who all but abducted his two best-known books. There are reflections on his local prison and local river. The collection amounts to a patchwork account of a quiet writer's engagement with the world outside.

* Alan Furst explains why it's OK to review a novel he'd also blurbed.

* During our visit to New York, we were given a gift copy of New Direction's George Steiner At The New Yorker, into which we've been delving with interest since we returned home.  The National Post weighs in.

Prefaced by an authoritative and admiring introductory essay from Robert Boyers and divided into three parts — “History and Politics,” “Writers and Writing” and “Thinkers” — the collection reveals a remarkable range of interests. These are motivated always by an ardour for the very best of human creation and also by a sharp eye for how, sadly, those capable of achieving the very best can also fall prone to much of the blindness and crudity that characterize the 20th century’s darker parts.

* The Financial Times offers a thoughtful review of In Other Rooms, Other Wonders.

* The Wilson Quarterly on McCulture:  "Americans have developed an admirable fondness for books, food, and music that preprocess other cultures. But for all our enthusiasm, have we lost our taste for the truly foreign?"

* SF Gate provides a list of "good novels for hard times."  Elsewhere, Robert McCrum ponders the effect of the recession on books and writers.

*  Dublin is hoping to become Unesco's fourth City of Literature.

* Alexander McCall Smith's secret life:

My real life villains ... are people with sloppy language habits, who don't articulate their words clearly, especially in call centres. Linguistic laziness is making it difficult for us to understand what our fellow citizens are saying.

* We are becoming less interested by the minute in The Kindly Ones. Ici aussi.

* It might have been noted elsewhere while we were running around, but there's a trailer out for Disgrace. (Thanks, Andie.)

* The papers of Heinrich Böll may have been lost when the archives housing the work collapsed.

Experts fear that even if the documents were not entirely crushed in the collapse, ground water and soil which has seeped into the hole left by the destroyed foundations will have ruined them. Restoration experts said the longer it took rescue workers to remove the rubble, the higher the danger that mould would attack the manuscripts.

* Honestly, sometimes we're just kinda speechless.  Rare.  But it happens.

* Sisyphus chuckling: Trying to get college students to read over spring break.

* The unfinished work of David Foster Wallace prompts this consideration on our hunger for unfinished works.

But there is a difference between the open-endedness a writer chooses to produce, and the mysteries of unfinished and posthumously published works. In the first case, the author has chosen the degree to which a reader is uncertain, and has determined the wider parameters within which questions can be asked; in the latter, a different curiosity emerges, for instance with biography being crudely used to analyse the work, or rejected material being used to clarify the author's decisions.

* Those who share out interest in all things Hungarian might want to check out Vera and the Ambassador.  (Surely, the first time we've linked to book review in Foreign Affairs.)

* The Spectator has launched a book club.

* End days: Rod Blagojevich's book deal, replete with self-serving explanations.

* Donald Barthelme much in the news these days - Louis Menand's comprehensive take at The New Yorker and a slightly contrarian view from The Smart Set.

* February's most downloaded books.  Mostly what you'd expect, except for Jane Austen and ... Ayn Rand??  Keep Greenspan away from the PC.

* Five Dials, a most interesting literary magazine from Hamish Hamilton, is available for your perusal.

* Thank to both Amitava Kumar and David Remy for alerting us to Ron Rosenbaum on Benjamin Black and the pleasures of reading.

* Haruki Murakami's Jerusalem Prize acceptance speech.

* Widely noted last week was the passing of Philip José Farmer.

The son of a civil engineer who survived a brief encounter with military life before working in a steel mill to put himself through college, Farmer supported his family as a peripatetic technical writer for defense contractors until the early 1970s, while (understandably) writing frequently sardonic fiction on the side. Married to the same woman since 1941, and a welcome guest at both Science Fiction conventions and local libraries in his native state of Indiana, Farmer's reputation for personal kindness and generosity was matched only by the wide-ranging fecundity of his imagination. He remained dynamically connected and accessible to his fans, writer peers, and the publishing world at large through the 1990s.

* And, finally, if you need to ask for money, what better way to do so than with Robert Pinsky and a Casio ...

Comments

[Kati]

Good speechless or bad speechless? I don't think it's fair to write Franco off offhand. At the very least, he takes writing very seriously.

[Herman Brown]

Re: James Franco. I'm never surprised that B-List celebs get their writing published, but I'm always disappointed. It's like Franco doesn't take himself seriously as an actor and doesn't really want us to take him seriously as an actor. So I won't then. But I also can't take him seriously as a writer when the fact that he is a B-list celeb is what gets his stories published in the first place. Mona Simpson should be ashamed of herself, but she isn't. No one is. It's just another way for some people to make some money. Of course, the problem is that James Franco doesn't need the money. He doesn't have to write, but he's going to because he can, because it's easy. To point out that there are thousands of other writers out there, all of them better than Franco, who could use the money that is being given to him, is a moot point, and also totally pointless as a point. I'm sure the people involved will argue that Franco is a talented writer, but hearing what he's writing about - violence, trauma, teen angst - I'd say he's already committed the cardinal sin of the mediocre in that he's writing bullshit. Franco has either been on a television show or making a movie since he's been 18 years old. Were his "stories" about his experiences doing something that most people will never get to do, like imitating James Dean, Kissing Sean Penn, etc., etc., I would be more than happy to give his work a chance. But it's not. It's about growing up in Palo Alto. It's about car accidents and other stuff. Pass. We already have one Ethan Hawke. We don't need another.

[Mo]

Unless you've read his work, you're just flapping your lips.

[James]

Herman is overly harsh, but I agree at least that I'd rather read Franco's take on kissing Sean Penn and being James Dean than I would his stories of typical American teendom. That's not just true for Franco, of course. The problem isn't his celebrity--he seems like a thoughtful guy--it's that his prose sounds like MFA pabulum.

By the way, the Furst link is broken; there's an extra "h" in the address.

[TEV]

Fixed - cheers, James.

[Mo]

We have no idea what his work is like. We have the opportunity every day to extend to one another the basic decency of not assuming more than we know. We should extend this to people who are famous and those who are not.

[Niall]

Colm Toibin makes money?

[Herman Brown]

You are a much better human being than I am, Mo. More compassionate, more humane, and way more decent. I have a hard time extending my limited sense of understanding towards beautiful 28 year old millionaire actors. But thank God for people like you, who are willing to open their hearts and minds to people who have it much better off than you ever will. That's real white of you.

[tod goldberg]

I have to say, I know several people who have taught Franco, as well as several people who have taken courses with him, both at UCLA and at Warren Wilson, and they all have said he's an excellent writer. I say give the guy a fair shot.

[abfrancophile]

Um, Herman: James Franco is almost 31 (not 28), his mother is a well-known children's book author (with Simon & Schuster/Candlewick), and his long-time gf comes from a legendary publishing family as well. There are many of us who are curious if not eager to read his writing, and who give him the BOTD before judging him, not merely because he also happens to be a talented (and yes classically handsome) actor/director/writer/painter/student/political activist and sometimes model. Before you judge further, visit www.Twitter.com/JamesFrancoNews

[TEV]

OK, we can keep an open mind with the best of them - but if he turns out to be Ethan Hawke 2009, I know where you live Goldberg ...

[CGG]

There are too many other writers whose work I want to read before I plunk down twenty-four bucks to read anything by James Franco. Writers whose work isn't a hobby.

[Karen]

Why do so many people in the literary community think that only certain people should be allowed to write? And why do you assume that he's not serious just because he's an actor? You don't go back to college at age 30 unless you're serious. Franco's work will stand or fall on its own.