Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Category Archives: Books ‘n’ Authors
The Anti-Lewis
Pop quiz: what contemporary author called C.S. Lewis’s Narnia stories “morally loathsome,” and in a 1998 essay for the Guardian, “The Dark Side of Narnia,” derided “the misognyny, the racism, the sado-masochistic relish for violence that permeates the whole cycle”?
Hint 1: the author was the subject of a Peter Hitchens essay entitled, “This Is the Most Dangerous Author in Britain.”
Hint 2: the author also said, “‘The Lord of the Rings’ is fundamentally an infantile work. Tolkien is not interested in the way grownup, adult human beings interact with each other. He’s interested in maps and plans and languages and codes.”
Give up? Go sit under a cold shower for ten minutes if you answered J.K. Rowling, because the author in question is Philip Pullman, author of (among other things) the “His Dark Materials” trilogy. Laura Miller in The New Yorker (Dec. 26, 2005 & Jan. 2, 2006) has a wonderful piece on Pullman, which you can read online here. Miller provides a three-dimensional glimpse of Pullman and his work. Her article is one of the best literary focus pieces I’ve read in a very long time.
Okay, time to get to work on dinner.
D.
Tagline: The hardest trick is making them stay
. . . in the theater.
Guess that movie.
Give up? Here’s a clue. Picture John Cusack looking tired, depressed, and constipated. Need help?
Are Men Necessary? The critical brouhaha.
Ron at Galley Cat has an interesting post on the recent hubbub over Kathryn Harrison’s review of Maureen Dowd’s Are Men Necessary?
Snip:
. . . a colleague of mine from the book reviewing world passed along an interesting question: “Should a critic be considered ‘conflicted’ if the ‘conflict’ consists solely of the potential subject having said something unpleasant about the critic in the past?”
Back to that in a moment; first, a recap. Last month, Editor and Publisher ran a concise summary of the highlights. Chronologically:
In 1997, Dowd in a column called “Banks for the Memories†described Harrison’s book “The Kissâ€â€”-a controversial memoir of her consensual four-year sexual affair with her own father–as an example of a trendy genre: “Creepy people talking about creepy people.”
Then, this year, the New York Times Book Review allowed Harrison to review Dowd’s new book, Are Men Necessary? Harrison slammed the book, saying, among other things,
Dowd’s skill as a columnist “does not enable her to produce a book-length exploration of a topic as complex as the relations between the sexes.”
Arianna Huffington subsequently wrote an editorial accusing the NY Times of violating their own ethical bylaws, and the story exploded into the blogosphere. Now, back to the Galley Cat post. The author’s opinion seems best summarized in this sentence:
. . . it simply isn’t very charitable to suggest that an author is incapable of reviewing another author’s work without her perspective being colored by personal vendetta.
but read the whole post (linked above) and see what you think. He also raises the nasty issue of blog sniping — in other words, is a reviewer conflicted if he has been reamed in the author’s blog? The writer of the Galley Cat post thinks not.
I disagree. I suspect this is something that can only be solved on a case-by-case basis. Some critics might be able to give an unbiased review in this circumstance, but I believe it’s human nature to hold a grudge. Rising above that prejudice takes considerable effort. I doubt all reviewers are up to that challenge.
Perhaps we should give reviewers the benefit of the doubt and assume professionalism on their part, but I don’t think editors should make this assumption lightly. If the review seems a trifle too bile-laced, perhaps the editor should ask questions.
I’m curious whether any of this matters. What is worse: to get slammed by the New York Times Book Review, or to get ignored by them?
A week or two ago, Maureen Dowd appeared on The Colbert Report. She was funny, beautiful, and played well with Stephen Colbert. They hyped her book (twice, I think?) which raises another question: who gets more viewers/readers — The Colbert Report, or the New York Times Book Review?
I suspect Colbert trumps NYTBR, but that’s just a hunch.
D.
Technorati tags: maureen dowd, New York Times Book Review
What this boy wants from a romance novel
For a change, I thought I’d post something for Smart Bitches Day which really concerns romance as a genre. To wit: how can you romance writers get more guys to read your stuff?
I’m not a typical guy, so please imagine that my every comment is prefaced with, “For what it’s worth . . . ” I despise team sports, I dislike gory violence in movies (unless it’s so far over the top that it’s unmistakably fake), and I have no desire to hang out with other guys. I don’t drink beer, get drunk, or smoke cigars. I really do like long walks on the beach, but that’s because I love finding bits of washed-up skeletons and gooey dead things.
So. For what it’s worth:
If I’m going to read a romance, I want it to be about romance. If I want a crime novel, I’ll read a crime novel. If I want something historically accurate, I’ll read Jane Austen. Give me a contemporary woman I can root for and I’m yours. Stephen, you’re excepted from this because your book has a monster and that’s cool. And Lilith, don’t get mad at me. Nothing wrong with paranormals, but I’d rather be reading the written equivalent of Sex and the City.
Next: the protagonists had better be likable, smart, and funny as hell. They should be people I would want to hang out with. Their witty dialog should be a joy to behold, and the world should sparkle because they’re alive. Think Martin Blank and Debi Newberry in Grosse Point Blank, or Nina and Jamie in Truly Madly Deeply.
Note that humor serves two roles: it is entertaining all by itself (and if you’re not trying to entertain, what the hell are you trying to do?) and it makes us care for the characters. They’ve made us laugh, and so they become our friends. We want to see good things happen to them.
If you’re going to play the boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl game, the ‘loses’ part had better not involve some stupid misunderstanding. Smart people don’t have stupid misunderstandings. Never never never. Maybe they do in real life, but I don’t want to read about a stupid misunderstanding, okay?
Paragraph number eight, and I haven’t said a single thing about sex. Why? Because it isn’t necessary. Think about it. Grosse Point Blank? Airplane on the bed, sexual tension, no actual sex. Truly Madly Deeply? Rickman’s dead, for heaven’s sake. Ew.
Sex and the City had no graphic sex, yet it titillated our prurient cravings and topped out our outrageous-o-meters. How? With language. If those writers can do it, you can do it, too.
It’s not that I have anything against graphic sex; it’s just that so few people do it well. Also, as any student of Cheers will tell you, sex dissipates all tension between your male and female protags. True, Sex and the City is a good counter-example. Their writers created tension in the issue of relationship survival. (Do any of you remember McCall’s magazine’s regular column, Can This Marriage Be Saved?) If you’re going to remove the sexual tension element, you had better replace it with something else.
If you’re going to include graphic sex, please, please don’t get goofy about it. Sex is not an expression of love. Sex is an expression of lust. Some time ago, I wrote a post about what guys think about during sex. Damn it, I can’t find it now, but here’s the bottom line: what we think about isn’t interesting. Lots of “One Mississippi, Two Mississippi,” if you must know. So, hot tip: keep it in the gal’s POV. Women may have the same problem as men, but I don’t know that, so you can write whatever you like from the gal’s POV and I won’t know if you’re bullshitting me.
My wife might, but that’s off topic.
One last point: the HEA (happily ever after — just wanted to let you know I’m not completely ignorant)? I’m not that hooked on it, or at least, I’d like to see a few liberties taken. Maybe they end up happily ever after with other people. Maybe they drift apart and realize they’re not right for one another. Maybe I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about, but it seems to me that some degree of unpredictability in the ending is a good thing.
There. I’ve done it. A genuine Smart Bitches post, and no spiders.
D.
Review of Intergalactic Medicine Show premier
Top of the heap at Tangent Online, at least for the moment, is my review of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, an e-zine that features a short story by Card and seven other short stories.
Highlight of this review: at long last, Eugie has had to take her red pen to my immortal words. She didn’t like the word ‘fugliest,’ as in,
The premier issue of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show features Card’s “Mazer in Prison,†seven other stories (some good, some not so good), and the fugliest Prairie Muffin ever to appear on SF cover art.
. . . choosing instead the phrase, “most unappealing.” Well, at least she kept “Prairie Muffin.” Take a look at the cover, and tell me I’m wrong.
I wish I could say I loved this collection, but I can’t. It’s a mixed bag, with three fine stories, and four that range from disappointing to [insert snarky adjective here]. Angry authors, feel free to leave your comments below.
For those of you who came here expecting humor, all I have are two great links from this morning’s YesButNoButYes (they’re currently running a story about a teddy bear with a butthole):
Santa Troubles: Claymation Santa’s DUI.
Woomba: 21st Century feminine hygeine.
Enjoy.
D.
Of course it’s pointless. That’s the point.
Because every kind shout deserves a great shout-back, and because most of y’all are literary types anyway . . .
Props to YesButNoButYes (or, as I like to call them, WhoNeedsBoingBoing) for finding this cool Kafka game, Kafkamesto. Earlier this evening, I played Kafkamesto for about an hour before realizing that if I could win, it wouldn’t be a Kafka game!
But I’m too much a Type A whack job not to keep trying. I’ve already googled for a walkthrough, but the best I’ve managed is this message board.
I’m sick. Sick as Kafka.
D.
Cover your Aslan
Fun reading this morning in the New Yorker (December 12, 2005): film critic Anthony Lane dishes on “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”:
It was only a matter of time before a major studio got its talons into C.S. Lewis. The only thing delaying any attempt to film his Narnia novels was the lack of technology; until recently, for example, there was no computer-imaging program powerful enough to re-create a wholly convincing wardrobe.
. . .
And so to the conceit that, for decades, has stirred both the souls of the faithful and the loins of professional Freudians: first Lucy, then Edmund, then all four children feel their way uncertainly through the folds of a deep, furry passage and into another world.
I read all seven Narnia books as a kid, not because I liked them (I preferred science fiction, surprise surprise, although when it came to fantasy, Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain series had my vote as best runner-up to Tolkien), but because I had pre-pubescent obsessive compulsive disorder and I had to finish any series I started. I remember enjoying only one of the books — The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Can’t remember a single thing about it, though.
I tried rereading Alexander’s books recently, and found them to be thin gruel compared to Tolkien. Anthony Lane comes to the same conclusion regarding C.S. Lewis:
When, as a grownup, I finally opened “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,” it struck me as woefully thin soil, with none of the gnarled roots of lore and language on which Tolkien thrived.
Well, we can’t all be Tolkien, even if we’re C.S. Lewis (or Lloyd Alexander).
My favorite fantasies written in the last 20-or-so years, not counting Terry Pratchett’s work: David Gemmell’s Legend and Glen Cook’s The Black Company, both of which taught me a lot about writing. They would both make splendid movies, too.
Neither of those novels ripped off the Tolkien universe. I am soooo sick of elves and dwarves.
D.
Professionally bad sex
Remember our Le Bad Sex competition? It was inspired by Guardian Unlimited Books’ Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Props to The Word Munger for feeding me this link to a Guardian Unlimited article providing full text of the firmest contenders.
(Sarah beat me to it, but since one or two of you don’t read the Smart Bitches, and since the above link is — apologies, Sarah, but it must be said — far more graphic, I decided to run with it.)
What is it about sex that drives such respected authors as John Updike, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and Salman Rushdie to the absolute pits of literary whiffydom? Read the Guardian Unlimited article and savor the rank odor of truly bad writing. Sorry, Daisy, I know your piece won my contest, but it shouldn’t have. It was far too well written.
Take one of the shorter entries:
The Olive Readers by Christine Aziz (Macmillan)
We made our way to the summerhouse and hid in its shadows. We lay on the cool floor and I twined my legs around Homer’s body, gripping him like a hunter hanging on to its prey. He made love to me with his fingers and I came in the palm of his hand. He stroked my breasts and neck. “Don’t wash it away” he said. “I want to be able to smell you tonight.”
Like a hunter hanging on to its prey? And what’s with the funky punctuation (“Don’t wash it away” he said.)? My high school AP English teachers would have red-lined me to hell and back.
As for content — eeew. You wouldn’t repeat this to your best friend, would you? For most people, this would qualify as too much information. If you wouldn’t tell it to your best friend, why would you share it with your readers?
Ah. I almost forgot the sole commandment of Serious Fiction: give us a glimpse of Truth. This also explains the following line from Marlon Brando and Donald Cammell’s Fan Tan:
It is the one drawback of fellatio as conscientious as hers that it eliminates the chance for small talk and poetry alike.
Guys: next time you’re gettin’ some and your gal is reciting “The Red Wheelbarrow,” tell her she’s not being conscientious enough. See how far you get.
D.
Moore’s Absolute Watchmen: a review
In the November 20 New York Times Book Review, Dave Itzkoff has written an excellent review of the Watchmen reissue, Absolute Watchmen. Read it online.
FYI: this oversized hardcover edition includes “preliminary notes of the illustrator Dave Gibbons . . . script pages, the original series proposal and other long-unavailable material,” but it’ll also set you back $75.
D.
The Science Fiction Top 10
Over at the Science Fiction Writing Yahoo group, folks are posting their top ten favorite SF novels. This was a toughie; how could I leave out Vance (Demon Princes), and Varley, and Zelazny, oh my? But I have to start somewhere. I reserve the right to yank my choices when Pat J. inevitably comes along and sez, “But you forgot . . .”
Silverberg’s To Live Again, that’ll be the first to go.
Here’s my (current, soon to change) top 10 list. NOVELS, mind you. We’ll do short stories some other day (Varley’s “Bagatelle” — number one — read it now!) Here we go, in no particular order:
1. Frederick Pohl’s Gateway. Hop in an alien ship, pre-programmed to take you to your violent death, hideous lingering disease, or fantastic treasures. It’s a crap shoot every time. Sure, the computer shrink gets on my nerves to this very day, but the harsh realities of Gateway itself more than makes up for Sigmund.
2. Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War. This is one of my favorite anti-war novels. Maybe it isn’t as famous or as funny as Catch-22, but I like it much better. Clean writing, great story, great message.
3. Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, with Occasional Music. Metcalf is a futuristic gumshoe with an evolved kangaroo after him. This is THE best marriage of Raymond Chandler with science fiction, bar none.
4. Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash. Computer nerd as Samurai hero; listen to Reason. Nuff said.
5. Peter Hoeg’s Smilla’s Sense of Snow. Smilla’s only friend is a six-year-old boy who lives in her apartment complex. When he dies, she refuses to believe it’s an accident.
The ending makes it SF, but Smilla is as hardboiled as they come. Another superbly written novel.
6. Michael Swanwick’s Stations of the Tide. How can a novel with lots of sex and allusions to Heart of Darkness not make my top ten list? Speaking of Heart of Darkness . . .
7. Alan Moore’s Watchmen. I don’t know what to say about Watchmen. If anyone out there hasn’t read it, beg, borrow, or steal a copy. Better yet, buy it.
8. Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle. The Axis has won World War II (wait a sec . . . is this fiction?), and America has been divided up between the Germans and the Japanese. Bob Hope is the only comedian whom the Nazis let live.
This is Dick’s masterpiece, in my opinion, although the Valis trilogy also has a warm place in my heart.
9. Robert Silverberg’s To Live Again. The recorded knowledge and personalities of great men and women are available to the living, for a price. This is my favorite of Silverberg’s body of work. I’m not sure how well it holds up over the years, but it stuck to my ribs for the last few decades — more than I can say about a lot of books.
10. Arthur C. Clarke’s Against the Fall of Night. In the far, far future of Earth, a kid goes on a journey of discovery, leaving behind everything familiar.
One of the first SF paperbacks I bought with my own money loooong ago. I read it many times as a kid. I hesitate to read it as an adult, because I’m afraid the magic will go poof.
Okay — your turn! And if you’re one of those Luuuuuurveâ„¢ junkies who has never read SF, make it your top 3 or 4 or whatever favorite SF movies.
D.