The Elegant Variation

AMAZONIAN ASSUMPTIONS

The Amazon Glitch-Snafu-Hack (depending on whom you read) has been much in the news the last few days, but this piece at the Washington Post - which speaks to the heart of the assumptions in Amazon's "algorithm" - is especially worth reading.

The issue with #AmazonFail isn't that a French Employee pressed the wrong button or could affect the system by changing "false" to "true" in filtering certain "adult" classified items, it's that Amazon's system has assumptions such as: sexual orientation is part of "adult". And "gay" is part of "adult." In other words, #AmazonFail is about the subconscious assumptions of people built into algorithms and classification that contain discriminatory ideas. When other employees use the system, whether they themselves agree with the underlying assumptions of the algorithms and classification system, or even realize the system has these point's of view built in, they can put those assumptions into force, as the Amazon France Employee apparently did according to Amazon.

NOT LITERARY

Not remotely.  But when the phenomenon of nude Alpine hikers begins to take hold, someone should be alerted.  (Yes, there's a picture.)

We know.  We're supposed to be writing.  But still ...

NOT A JOKE

A Los Angeles-based TV comedy writer (because, really, could this happen anywhere else?) has updated Pride and Predjudice with the one element missing all these years ...

Austen fans are in for a shock, with heroine Elizabeth Bennet and her four sisters becoming zombie slayers and taught how to fight like Japanese ninjas by Mr Darcy.

Apparently, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies contains 85% of the original text.

BOOK WORLD SHUTTERED

Despite editor Marcus Brauchli's recent mealy-mouthed prevarications, the Washington Post is shuttering Book World.

According to reports from Book World employees, the last issue of Book World will appear in its tabloid print version on Feb. 15 but will continue to be published online as a distinct entity. In the printed newspaper, Sunday book content will be split between Outlook, the opinion and commentary section, and Style & Arts.

We have said it before and we'll say it again.  The future of book reviewing will not be found in print dailies.  As the Post's move suggests, it's online.

THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT

If you can think of a worse director to take on The Great Gatsby, feel free to leave it in the commens box. (Thanks to FOTEV Chris for the link.)

SIGNS OF THE APOCALYPSE

NOT THAT YOU NEEDED MORE REASONS TO AVOID THE LA TIMES ...

... but with the departures of Maria Russo, Scott Timberg and Veronique de Turenne, the Los Angeles Times accelerates (and just about completes) its slide into total irrelevance. 

SPICY OR MILD?

John Sutherland on The Enchantress of Florence: "If it doesn't win this year's Man Booker I'll curry my proof copy and eat it."

Seriously, though, it's hard to get excited about this shortlist, although we do like Barry.  Who knows?  The Irish have been on a roll of late.

COULD WE, PERHAPS, KEEP OUR RESPONSES TO OURSELVES?

Let us all share a collective tear for Martin Amis who, according to the Globe and Mail, is "feeling vulnerable" ...

Amis sighs, or least lets out an exasperated breath. He's had more public lashings than most critics have had free lunches, and you sense this latest won't finish him off. “Is the discourse so limited?” he asks. “Is there not room for this? I make no recommendations in this book, I propose no actions. This is just the novelist in the street having a response to an enormous development.”

JUST THE FACTS, MA'AM

Needless to say, we disagree with Marilyn Stasio's bewildering take on The Silver Swan (which we thought even better than the excellent Christine Falls).  What's most confusing to admitted non-genre types like ourselves (and what follows is not an invitation to unleash the usual flame barrage) is this assertion:

Black has given himself plot headaches by meddling with some techniques of the trade he mastered so brilliantly in “Christine Falls.” Departing from the convention of allowing the reader to follow the story from the detective’s perspective, Black runs Quirke’s private investigation on a parallel track with the victim’s own story, told in intimate flashbacks.

Saints preserve us, such esoteric, outré literary devices!  As Ms. Stasio reaches for the reassuring comfort of The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, we ponder her closing:

But the conventions of crime fiction provide structural security for any exploratory attack on the subject of evil (or sin, as Black’s characters are more apt to define it), and failing to take full advantage of that freedom is like traveling all the way to Ireland and neglecting to visit either a church or a pub.

Now, we know that the whole ongoing clash between the so-called literary and the so-called genre is a touchy subject, tedious to most (including ourselves) and made increasingly irrelevant by efforts of the likes of Michael Chabon and Jonathan Lethem.  But it would seem to us that it's precisely this sort of slavish devotion to form that renders the form less interesting to those with more (yes) literary leanings.  Sure, we understand that there are rules, but we also understand that art routinely breaks rules in pursuit of greatness.  (Now, we're not even going to go near the whole "erotica" v. literary fiction thing, especially since Rupert Smith has it so, ahem ably in hand ... )

At any rate, we urge you to ignore Ms. Stasio's confining notions of what makes a good read and check out this wonderfully moody novel for yourself.