Photo: © Niall McDiarmid

Some year-old timeless thoughts from Robin Robertson (via Bookseller), deputy publisher at Jonathan Cape, and in my opinion one of the best living poets in the English language (on my mind today because I’ve just bought signed first editions of his Swithering, and Medea):

On what to Read: "We’ve reached a very dangerous moment culturally in this country," he intones. "Somebody has to take cultural responsibility—there aren’t any arbiters in place." When he started out in the 1980s, editors, booksellers and newspaper literary sections were "working vigorously, with some cohesion, to try to bring the best work into the hands of the public. I don’t think anybody could argue that’s the situation now." Meanwhile the market is "flooded with the second, third and fourth rate. So how does anybody know what to read?"

Really on what to read: forgotten gems like Death and Nightingales by Eugene McCabe or Ulverton by Adam Thorpe ("I can’t think of a more perfectly formed and thrillingly inventive first novel—it had everything").

***

Wants for his version of Medea: to show how the play is "utterly fresh and valid . . . twisted relationships, hidden desire—this isn’t 2,500 years old, it’s hardwired into our make-up."

***

On  the disharmonous editing and writing sides of his life: "They are almost entirely in opposition, in a frictional and damaging way. I don’t know anyone else who suffers quite in this fashion." Dwelling in other authors’ worlds stymies his own creativity, he says. "To be a successful editor you have to steep yourself in their style, adapt your sensibility to theirs. You can’t then go home and write a poem. You need to detox from those voices, the work, the whole London despoilation."

***

On Art: "Art is difficult and I don’t see why we should shy away from it. We live in such a disposable age that anything that needs a second thought is ignored. We are missing out on the real sustenance."

A favorite bookstore photo, among many more found here.

Word has it that John K. King Books houses some one million books…when you take a look at the size of the place… 

this word somehow gains credibility.  

And the definition of agony: Arriving 9:00am with only twenty minutes to spare at the doors of a bookstore that obviously, if perused, would yield countless treasures…only to find that the place opens at 9.30am…

1. People who never make mistakes never try anything new.
Most people don’t try new things because  they fear failure. Failing is not something to be afraid of. Losers often learn more about winning than winners. Mistakes provide opportunities to learn and grow.
2. Education is what remains after you forget what you’ve learned in school
Life lessons stay with you forever. Real education starts from within.
3. I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.
Reflect upon how far humans have come since dwelling in caves.  What we can do now with technology is a result of the imagination of our fore-bearers. Imagine what we’ll be able to do in the future
4. The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.
Creativity and uniqueness often depend on how well you hide your sources. You can be inspired and influenced by great people; but when you are on stage with the whole world watching, you must become a unique, individual force who learns different values from different people.
5. The value of a man should be measured in terms of what he contributes to the world.
The ‘best’ people add something of value to the world. You must give in order to take. When your purpose is to contribute, you live at a higher level.
6. There are two ways to live: as if nothing is a miracle, or as if everything is a miracle. Try to live both these ways.
When nothing is a miracle, you can do anything you want with no limits. When everything is a miracle, you stop by to appreciate even the smallest of beautiful things in the world. Thinking both ways will give you a productive and happy life.
7. The gift of fantasy has meant more to me than any talent for abstract, positive thinking.
Dream about all the great things that you can achieve, let your imagination go wild, and create the world that you would like to live in.
8. Act
If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, start a business right away. Wishing to be one, but fearing the consequences, will not help. The same applies foreverything – in order to win the game, you must play the game.
9. Learn the rules of the game. Then play better than anyone else.
Compete as if your life depends on it. After a while you will only have yourself to compete against. At that point, better your best.
10. Never stop questioning. Curiosity exists for a reason.
Intelligent people find solutions, gain knowledge and grow by continuously asking questions.

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Into photographs? Check out this site. And (thanks to Max) watch this slideshow (assuming the link works).

Born, raised and currently resident in Ottawa, Canada, Christian McPherson’s poetry has appeared in a variety of print and online journals. He has won the John Spenser Hill Award and the Ottawa Public Library Short story Award. We met recently to discuss his first published collection called Poems that Swim from my Brain like Rats leaving a Sinking Ship. Please listen here as we talk, among other things, about death, the misery of TV news, and a light hearted approach to life:

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

According to BookTrust, the book chosen more often than any other by British newspaper critics for their top ten 2008 Book lists was Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland. In America, James Wood called it  “One of the most remarkable post-colonial novels I have ever read.”  Author Joseph O’Connor  ‘Many have tried to write a great American novel. Joseph O’Neill has succeeded." “ …more life inside it than ten very good novels.” says Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review. “Brilliant –  says GQ,  “unendingly beautiful.” —The Los Angeles Times “Remarkable…. Note-perfect.” —Vogue

One thing that bothers me about this, is how often highly praised contemporary works fail to live up to their billing. While it is important to celebrate what is good about what’s current, it’s also essential to maintain the integrity of our language…Netherland is not a ‘great’ work, it is not ‘note perfect’, and other post-colonial novels dwarf it. Not to recognize O’Neill’s imperfections, to call them excellencies, will only harm his reputation in the long run.

The book contains beautiful, lyrical, literary passages, and some noteworthy reflections on life, but it fails in my opinion both to develop characters to a point where I care about what happens to them, and on the same note, to construct a plot of any complexity…Hyperbolic approbation threatens to gut all meaning from words commonly used by literary critics to denote greatness. Just as ‘freedom’ and ‘justice’ and ‘equality’ today mean nothing when used by politicians. 

On the sweet side: to admire O’Neill for his merits: here are some memorable phrases/passages:

A barbarously sticky American afternoon

The fantasy did not consist of imagining her physically at my side butr of imagining her at a long distance, as before, and me still remotely swaddled in her consideration.

I was, it will be understood, afflicted by the solitary’s vulnerability to insights.

Delusions that had the effect of exempting the United States from the very rules of civilized and lawful and rational behavior it so mercilessly sought to enforce on others.

Who has the courage to set right those misperceptions that bring us love?

Did Iraq have weapons of mass destruction that posed a real threat? I had no idea; and to be truthful, and to touch on my real difficulty, I had little interest. I didn’t really care.

I was no longer vulnerable to curiosity’s enormous momentum.

a destroyed looking man in his sixties

I cannot be the first to wonder if what we see, when we see men in white take to a cricket field, is man imagining an environment of justice.

Women of New York: …their air of intelligent libidinousness

…the sticks of light that collected in the trees

It was unexpectedly reassuring to receive his [dentist’s] deepest consideration

…the shadows of the leaves seemed vital and creaturely as they stirred on the ground – an inkling of some supernature, to a sensibility open to such things.

I slapped at my ankle. A red smudge took the place of a mosquito

…drew a pistol faster than his own shadow.

…as though I’d been affected by the abrupt consensus of movement that redirects flocking birds. I decided to move back to London.

Love…is such an omnibus word.

On the Sour: This novel is about a finance guy who experiences marital difficulties, plays some cricket, chums around in New York with a small time if-you-build-it-they-will-come immigrant/hood/dreamer [who gets killed], and reunites with his wife and son in London.  As Samuel Johnson put it: "Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain which the reader throws away. He only is the master who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day." Netherland, while entertaining enough, was a slog to get through despite its scant 256 pages; it was perused with little eagerness, finished with no sorrow.  One thing it absolutely isn’t is suspenseful. Where Jonathan Safran Foer gets off saying this, I really don’t know…but that’s an argument for another time.

For now: Netherland pales in comparison to, for example, Martin Amis’s truly great work London Fields, which, though it may too lack a complex plot, contains characters who are much better formed, humour that is sharper and more frequent, and most rewarding of all, as I have documented in some detail,  page after page filled with extra-terrestrially original, playful, celebratable metaphors and phrase-making. 

Stay tuned for Part ll: The Disingenuous use of Netherland by Zadie Smith

 Image from here.




Am reading John Carey’s What Good are the Arts. Here’s a summary of Chapter One.

Arthur Danto separates the course of Western art into two narratives. ‘Representation’, from about 1400- 1880, the aim of which was to imitate nature with more and more accuracy; and ‘Modernism’, the aim of which was to explore the potential of the materials – paint, canvas, etc. Illusion was no longer pursued Art was not about nature ( or ‘reality’) but about art. This movement ended with Andy Warhol’s Brillo Boxes, which showed that ‘art’ needed no special qualities discernible by the senses. Anything, concluded Danto, could be a work of art. What made it so, was how it was regarded; that someone thought it to be a work of art. But this didn’t satisfy him. Danto believed with Kant that art is special, that there is a kind of ‘trans-historical essence in art, everywhere and always the same.’ To see something as art requires an ‘atmosphere’ of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art. Only the opinion of those who possess this can turn an object into art. They are qualified to do this because they can understand its meaning;’ it ‘ being the one the artist intended; success of the work is thus determined by the extent to which it achieves this intent.

Problem is, says Carey, we don’t have access to these intentions…intentionalism is easily dismissed…what we are left with is this religious type transcendental knowledge/authority whose verdict cannot be questioned, which automatically overrides personal, subjective opinion.

Studies from the Kreitler’s book Psychology of the Arts are cited, which find that responses to art are highly subjective, and that personal association plays a major role in determining preference….understanding why this is so would require virtually infinite knowledge of  ‘perceptual, cognitive, emotional and other personality characteristics, plus biographical data, specific personal experiences, past encounters with art and individual memories and associations’ before the response of a single viewer to a single artwork could even start to be understood.

Carey thus concludes that a ‘work of art is anything that anyone has ever considered a work of art, though it may be a work of art only for that one person; and the reason for considering  anything a work of art will be as various as the variety of human beings.’

Which leaves us stuck in a quagmire of egalitarian relativism; with the opinion of someone who hasn’t read, say, any more than half a dozen works of 20^th Century fiction, just as valid as that of a critic who has read thousands. Some choice: a dictatorship or anarchy. 

from here.

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Joseph Roth.

Salman Rushdie on Leonard Lopate, and I paraphrase:

There is more well written fiction — creative writingese, bloodless, humourless competence –  today than there has ever been at any time in history, and less really great literature. This thanks to an epidemic of writing classes.

Craft is the one thing you can teach.

But  you can’t teach eye — what to see/select. You can’t teach ear. Or a vision of the world that is interesting. Or how to develop a profound relationship with language.

In other words, you can’t teach people how to create great literature

Whilst in Chicago recently I not only had a chance to spend time with The Bard, I also interviewed the appealingly caustic, Neil Gaiman-loving  Bookslut Jessa Crispin

about her role as a successful literary blogger, and how and why her site has become so popular. She even showed me her bedroom…where she stores these shelves

of signed, flatteringly inscribed, books written by writers she has encountered along the road to litblog stardom.

In addition to Jessa, I had the pleasure while in the windy city of interviewing, among others: the University of Chicago Press‘s Levi Stahl on his role as publicist, and Keith Fiels, Executive Director of the American Library Association on the noisiest concerns of librarians. Please stay tuned for the audio. Oh, and I also had time to take a few more of these:

Here, courtesy of The Millions website are the fiction writers who have appeared in The New Yorker at least five times during the last six years:

12: Alice Munro

10: William Trevor

8: T. Coraghessan Boyle, Tessa Hadley

7: Louise Erdrich, John Updike, Roddy Doyle, Haruki Murakami

6: Thomas McGuane

5: Antonya Nelson, Tobias Wolff,  George Saunders, Charles D’Ambrosio, Jonathan Lethem, Edward P. Jones, Roberto Bolaño, Lara Vapnyar