We can assay the weight and substance of a given work and argue its merits, but essentially the value of the thing is in its power to move us and hold us and remain in our minds long after the event of our first reading. For example, Tarzan of the Apes is a silly work in almost any critical regard except in the way that matters.
When art and craft are brought to a work that has that power to endure, we have the transcendent experience of stepping beyond our petty concerns into other places, in other times, and living larger lives than what we have managed by ourselves.
Not every great work is a Moby Dick, or should be. Not every reader has the stamina, or the need for the quest of a…
There was the St. Louis Post Dispatch, “Turmoil over the book price war took a new turn today when the Justice Department was asked to investigate what a booksellers group called ‘illegal predatory pricing’.”
The New York Times, “(Reuters) The American Booksellers Association has asked the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate a recent price war on books sold online between such retail giants as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Amazon.Com Inc and Target Corp ahead of the holidays.”
The Washington Post noted, “The plot really began to thicken Monday when Target got into the game. It also began selling eight of the books offered by Wal-Mart for $8.99. Not to be outdone by its chief competitor, Wal-Mart on Tuesday beat Target’s price—by a penny.”
And the Wall Street Journal said, “Wal-Mart triggered the online skirmish Thursday when it began selling the 10 most anticipated hardcovers for $10 apiece…
I was recently asked to contribute to the Powells Books website as a guest blogger for the week of Monday, Oct. 19 through Friday the 23rd. Powell’s has kindly given me permission to repost my entries here.
Back in March of 2009, Terry Teachout wrote an excellent appraisal of one of my favorite authors, Flannery O’Connor, for the journal Commentary. This article was in turn written upon the publication of Brad Gooch’s biography Flannery: a Life of Flannery O’Connor. As it happens, I only read Mr. Teachout’s critique this morning when I stumbled across it in the course of another attempt to come to terms with my disdain for so much of twentieth century literature within the confines of essaying here.
No. Disdain is too mild a term.
When a body of literature so wholly beggars an art form of such importance, disdain does not quite sum up my feeling. The reputations of such luminaries as Styron, Bellow, Ellison, Mailer, Salinger, and Capote fade quickly before our eyes as the new century roars. A command of style alone does not reach beyond the page. In…
Like a paving stone on a walk at night–no, more like a book left down on the floor where you were reading it while trying to stretch the pain from your back so you could sleep–I stumbled upon a book shop in Derbyshire the other day. I have never much been to Derbyshire, having missed those roads as I drove through England back in 1978. This particular bookshop was there at that time but in no better shape than my own little effort in Boston, right down to trying to survive by selling textbooks on the side. No, I stumbled upon Scarthin books in Cromford because I spend too much time on the internet these days. I was researching what others considered to be the best bookshops.
It’s all very disappointing to a glass-half-empty sort like myself. So many people who love books and want to work for themselves try…
In his curiously bloodless memoir Books, Larry McMurtry says, “A bookman’s love of books is a love of books, not merely the information in them.” This explains as much as the author wanted if taken alone, but seen in the context of a life, it reveals a great deal more.
I say curiously bloodless because I have no doubt of McMurtry’s love, nor his ability to explain it. He is both an accomplished author and a successful bookman. His experience at those vocations is prodigious. Yet, he seems reluctant to bare his soul now in either calling. As if he is speaking to an unfriendly audience.
A few years ago I read McMurtry’s quest, Roads, with even less satisfaction. I love to drive. I was blessed with children who enjoy the journey, and my youthful joy at being on the road to somewhere was carried on through…
The gnashing of teeth and beating of breasts will not occur until later, when it is discovered that Uncle Octavo has squandered his fortune in recent years
The theft of time has always been a primary fascination and pursuit. Beyond my own conceit, the subject is more commonly known as history. But I have always seen the subject both more broadly and more personally than would be accepted by, say, the typical academic.
Usually, pedagogic prejudice does not openly admit its failings and weakness. Needing fortification against the untaught masses who might otherwise question the tattered cloak, the academic will often throw up a screen of minutia and assumed fact and bellow its affected knowledge loudly. ‘Do not look behind the curtain.’ Information is buried in the labyrinth of libraries and ‘off-site’ storage facilities. Few professors are true scholars and anyone who approaches the citadel without first accepting the self-perpetuating rules of academic engagement will be denied entry to the sanctuary of the academy.
Some of this is understandable. The entry fee to those precincts…
