German teenage novelist Helene Hegemann has a bestseller accused of lifting a key page from the book and blog of another young Berliner. NYT says it “shows that perhaps more than simple cribbing is at work. When another character asks Edmond if he came up with that line himself, he replies, ‘I help myself everywhere I find inspiration.’” So not quite Kaavya Viswanathan, but not attribution-share alike either.
Ryan Chapman’s on Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey: “I remember Sam Tenenhaus saying Roberto Bolaño’s 2666 was great because it captured our fragmented, internet-addled expression of reality. I would say Zachary Mason’s The Lost Books of the Odyssey does the same. This slim work doesn’t need images, or hyperlinks, or video animations to make it ‘better,’ it’s already at the peak of its art as a novel. It can be tersely described as a Borgesian fan fiction approach to Homer. (This plays well on Twitter.) But I would also argue its episodic structure, sidelong approach to canonical myths – an iterative text built upon the urtext – and its conception by a computer scientist make Zachary Mason’s novel a consummate evocation of the novel in 2010. It contains the modern world, though slyly, furtively.” Wow. More about Mason in the New York Times today.
“Long-form text-only narrative will continue to thrive as it has since cavemen gathered around the fire, just as painting has thrived since Lascaux. The advent of more and richer iterations of multimodal entertainment and edification will not kill off others (either multi or single mode) in the future, just as they did not in the past, though they certainly will kill businesses with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement based on past success in a given mode.” From Richard Nash/s predictions on book publishing in the next 10 years.
Sarah Weinman has a great essay in the Believer this month about an author you’re going to want to read next: Don Carpenter. More on her blog: “He never deserved to be forgotten.” Weinman explains he was a regular at the San Francisco dive Enrico’s in the late 60s along with Richard Brautigan and Evan S. Connell, another unjustly forgotten author (”one of the first to put the literary scalpel to the suburban skin,” as Greg Bottoms once put it in Salon.)
Unica Zurn’s writing and art is what I turn to when I’m looking for inspiration, so it’s no surprise “Unica Zürn: Dark Spring,” at the Drawing Center, was one of my favorite gallery shows this year. It left me with a greater appreciation of her genius, and also with a longing for the days when art and literature (and film and music) were not compartmentalized. Curator João Ribas won the International Association of Art Critics’ (AICA) annual award for Best Show By A Non-Profit Gallery or Space. Ribas is now the curator at MIT’s exceptional List Galley.
Significant Objects had its 100th and final auction. Now they’ve posted a list of all the objects, what they cost and what they sold for. And the stuff from the famous writers didn’t always go for the highest bids. As Sarah Weinman points out, it “emphasizes the randomness that is publishing and reader taste, which is actually kind of cool.”
Joel Achenbach in the Washington Post on Age of Twitter lit; “There is much confusion about what, precisely, should vanish in this broad media makeover. Is it print? Or just long stories? Or just bad, boring, dishwater-dull stories? Complicating the situation is that the online world is both increasingly dominant and, for many media organizations, stubbornly unprofitable.” He goes on to say, “The sages say that we’ve reached a situation where “content creation” no longer pays. Only “aggregation” is profitable. It’s a freak variant of Darwinism — the survival of the parasitic. But obviously there will be little of value to aggregate if only rich people and dilettantes can afford to type up their thoughts.” –which I don’t at all agree with, but generally this is one of the better looks at tech-influence literature. (via.)
You really should be reading Matthew Battle’s blog. Here’s a post on the WikiReader. Check out the comments. I’ve held off on the Kindle and will hold off on the Nook, because if I buy it now, I’ll want to upgrade by next at least by the end of the year. Compare this to the iPhone, which was set to go right out the gates. I got the iPhone in autumn 2007 and only upgraded a few months ago due to water damage. That’s almost two years with the original device. But the primary e-reader, Kindle or whatever it may be, will look and feel very, very different in two years. It had a bumpy start with too many problems and frustrated users. Right now, I’d almost much prefer something like the WikiReader, since it won’t be antiquated by 2011. Meanwhile, here is Tim Carmody on the possibility of a dedicated blog reader. I have a french press, a moka pot, and a drip coffee maker and I use all three of them regularly. I hope in the future there are affordable e-readers I can use depending on the reading and reading experience I’m looking for. Previously: Reading Only Devices: Why iPhone, Kindle, and Tablet PCs Might Mean Smarter Blog Comments
You can download most of the new n+1 issue in “their handsome original format for between $1 and $3 at Scribd.com.”
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