From The Wilson Quarterly, a review of The Case for Literature by Gao Xingjian. The Modernist who hated modernity: A review of Henry James Goes to Paris by Peter Brooks. A master analyst of his times, and of the human heart, it's an ongoing mystery why Philip Roth, America's best novelist, has yet to receive his rightful laurels. Frank Rich reviews Falling Man by Don DeLillo. Is DeLillo equating survivors of 9/11 with terrorists? A debate on Falling Man (and a review).
Newt Gingrich's new novel is an alternative history of the war — World War II, that is. But are there contemporary lessons to be learned from rewriting the past? What’s so funny about that? Even when it wasn’t explicitly about the Holocaust, Primo Levi’s fiction was haunted by his time at Auschwitz. More on A Tranquil Star: Unpublished Stories of Primo Levi.
The responsibility of the novelist: Samir El-Youssed, Mohsin Hamid and Gabriel Vasquez discuss complexity in fiction at Hay. A successful journalist resigns to pursue a new life - and an ambitious reading list: A review of Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna.
From First Things, if the Ministry of Truth had devoted their full attention to obliterating the memory of Harry Sylvester, his elimination from the public consciousness could not have been more total; Ross Douthat on Stephen King’s American Apocalypse; and lots of novel readers—from the highest brow to the lowest—nod politely when the science-fiction writer Gene Wolfe is mentioned. Both the Soldier cycle and the Book of the New Sun series reveal the problem and the promise of Gene Wolfe. A law professor's first legal thriller hits its mark: A review of Scott Gerber's The Law Clerk.
If you find much of life and politics so absurd as to be hilarious, you need to read Christopher Buckley. Words that once shocked and surprised have become standard expressions, but do we really need to use the F-word in every sentence? Seeking Signs of Literary Life in Iran: Forget reading Lolita in Iran. In the officially vetted edition of Madame Bovary, even adultery is off limits. A review of Karaoke: the global phenomenon by Zhou Xun and Francesca Tarocco. Land of the rising daughters: A review of Kickboxing Geishas by Veronica Chambers. A review of Bento Box in the Heartland: My Japanese Girlhood in Whitebread America by Linda Furiya.
A review of The Empty Nest: 31 Parents Tell the Truth About Relationships, Love, and Freedom After the Kids Fly the Coop. Judd Apatow, the director of “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and now “Knocked Up”, makes comedies about saving yourself for marriage and staying together for the sake of the kids. An interview with Rebecca Mead, author of One Perfect Day: The Selling of the American Wedding. A work of genius has more in common with its brilliant opposite than it does with a dozen dull siblings. Witness the following unlikely pair, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A Novel in Cartoons by Jeff Kinney and How to Steal a Dog by Barbara O'Connor. And misery loves comedy: Grief takes on many forms, though it’s rare to hear about a sudden addiction to comedy clubs and Seth Meyers’s political impersonations
