Isak

Nobel Downbeat

The winner of the 2009 Nobel Prize in Literature will be announced next month, and Michael Schaub is taking the opportunity to reflect on the literary club that holds more prestige and cultural weight than any other. In his look back at the 105 winners (only 11 of whom are women), Schaub hilariously makes note of the very high percentage of Nobel-honored authors who have nonetheless slipped out of world memory, who have had unexpected legacies, or who went on dishonored themselves (like, um, the one who called Hitler a "warrior for mankind" and gifted his Nobel Prize to Joseph Goebels).

Don't Let TriQuarterly Go Gently

Reese Kwon admits that the odds are steep, but nonetheless calls it "immensely worthwhile" to write the folks at Northwestern University and urge them to reconsider their appalling decision to gut the editorial board of TriQuarterly.

Because, of course, the upsetting part of the announced changes is that the university has decided the magazine no longer needs its editors and TriQuarterly can function just as well as an “‘open source’ student-run journal.” (The university is moving the print journal online, too, but that’s comparatively a minor point.) Editors–it should be needless to say, but it seems it isn’t–matter, as does demonstrated expertise. For the most part, editors labor for little glory and less pay because they love discovering, curating, and, well, editing new literature–and the good ones are invaluable. Poet C. Dale Young writes here about the wisdom that TriQuarterly’s longstanding editor Susan Hahn brought to bear on his first manuscript of poems; the New Yorker’s Book Bench makes the point that “reducing overhead in materials and distribution by publishing online is one thing; letting go of the editors who guided the literary vision of a serious journal over the course of decades signals a more ominous commitment to cost-efficiency at the expense of institutional and intellectual values.”

Speak up, says Kwon.

The how: the president of Northwestern is Morton Shapiro, and he can be reached at nu-president@northwestern.edu.

The why: in short, TriQuarterly is an excellent and groundbreaking literary magazine, founded in 1958, that was the first to discover writers ranging from Amy Hempel (by publishing her heartstopping and oft-anthologized story, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried”) to, more recently, Aleksander Hemon. As per an email sent out by TriQuarterly’s associate editor, Ian Morris, the decision was made by the university–and handed down to the review’s editors–only hours before a press release went out.

I appreciate, too, Kwon's urging to show your love by subscribing to at least one of the dozens and dozens of amazing literary magazines and journals out there. I picked five that I loved and listed them as my current "Top Five" in the far-right column. But I'd just as soon nominate the New England Review, or the Kenyon Review, or Five Points, or Glimmer Train, or Ploughshares, or Brick, or Witness as being among those that are extraordinary and highly worth your love.

Got too much to read? Don't feel like you have attention left over for another magazine or journal coming to your doorstep? One of my favorite gifts for people is a specially-chosen gift subscription to something I think they'll fall for. The choosing is enormous fun. And, as they say, it is a gift that keeps on giving.

So, step up, open up your mind, have a bit of backbone, and support the vibrant literary culture that I know you value so much.

Quick Hit: Cornel West Tells All

Dr. Cornel West has just published the hotly anticipated memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. He is, as TIME Magazine has called him, "one complex dude: brilliant scholar, political activist, committed Christian and soul brother to the bone.” He is also, of course, a Princeton professor of religion and African-American stories and an established author of many books, including the classic Race Matters.

On Democracy Now!, West discusses his upbringing, public healthcare, post-election disappointment, the role of music in his life, his spat with former Harvard president and current White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers, and more.

Rona Jaffe Winners Honored

The winners of the 2009 Rona Jaffe Foundation prizes were honored last week at a private reception in New York City. Poet Elizabeth Alexander--she of Obama inauguration fame--was the featured guest.

You remember that you don't apply for one of the RJ's prestigious $25,000 awards; you are anonymously nominated. The money is intended to support exceptionally talented women writers of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry so that they can create time and space for writing.

Earlier, I enthused about poet Vievee Francis  being chosen for this amazing award; I'm now in the process of discovering Lori Ostlund through her new short story collection, The Bigness of the World, which I'm reviewing for The Collagist. The book won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction.

The other RJ winners include Krista Bremer, Janice N. Harrington, Helen Phillips, and Heidy Steidlymayer.

Image Credit: GalleyCat.

Quick Hit: Book Publica

Daniel Manaker has a tough-minded and candid piece in the Barnes & Noble Review about the book publishing industry. He comes from a crucial vantage point: he is a fiction writer, a former fiction editor of The New Yorker, and the former vice president and executive editor-in-chief at Random House. Rarely have I seen the ground laid out in such a thorough way.

The Best Book Borrowing

I'm of two minds when it comes to book borrowing. On one, I adore sharing books with other people, passing on favorites and talking incessantly about them later. I have a lot of books on my shelves (re: milk cartons) and it seems to me that rather than just sitting there, they each deserve to live in a reader's hands; if not mine, then someone who I've lent the book to. And I've been a grateful recipient of lent books. There was one poet in my MFA program who said that she liked to think of herself as a "book fairy;" someone who put great and wonderful books out into the world, either directly into a readers' hands, or by leaving copies on a cafe table. And indeed, the last morning of one of our residencies, I woke up on the couch in the common room (ahem) and found a brand-new copy of The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean next to me. I had been talking about wanting to read it that week and, it seems, the book fairy heard me.

But at the same time: I have recently realized that I have no idea where my beloved hardcover copy of The Dead Fish Museum of Charles D'Ambrosio is. I probably lent it to someone. This someone hasn't returned it. And I want to go for the jugular.

Peter Stothard puts this all into perspective with his story of what he contends is the best case of book borrowing of all time. Stothard writes that " ... one of the greatest poems in English had resulted from a borrowed book - and not a just a book from any lender but from a lender who was a journalist on The Times."

It went down like this:

Thomas Massa Alsager was one of those 19th-century newspaper figures whose versatility puts every one of us, his modern successors, to shame. He was a manager, a music critic, a city editor, an advertising salesman and he was also midwife to John Keats's sonnet On First Looking into Chapman's Homer.

He lent Keats the book.

It was in 1816 when Keats looked for the first time into a translation of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by George Chapman, the Jacobean poet and dramatist.

Chapman's grand barbarism, as has often been recounted, was in shocking contrast to the refined Homeric lines of Alexander Pope, the ``smooth little toys'' on which Keats and his friends had been brought up.

Chapman's Homer lit a beacon for Romantic poetry. So the actual copy of Chapman's Homer, the one which made possible this transforming work for Keats and for English letters, was one of the most important book borrowings of all time.

Alsager's strange story didn't end with this extraordinary exchange, however ...

Anne Frank's Prose (Francine Prose, That Is)

Cynthia Crossen interviews Francine Prose for The Wall Street Journal about her latest project: Anne Frank: The Book, the Life and the Afterlife, a book that looks at Frank not as a young girl gushing into her diary, but as a writer who consciously crafted the book she left behind. Prose takes Frank seriously as an artist.

"(T)eenaged girls are the most maligned, undervalued portion of the population, as though they're all gossip girls," Prose tells Crossen. "They can be very smart and attuned to the world. But it isn't a demographic we associate with literary genius."

But Frank, after all, is the author of one of the most-read books in the world. While that is surely fueled by the sheer drama of Frank's story of hiding in an attic during the Holocaust--and her tragic end--it's also fueled by the fact that her book is just plain good. I can't see how it would be so popular, still, 60-plus years on, if it weren't. And so, I'm intrigued by Prose's premise.

Says Prose in the interview:

The diary is beautifully orchestrated—the way she alternates dramatic scenes with reflections, the incredibly vivid characterizations of the eight people, how each one handles the problem of how to take a bath or peel potatoes. Her naturalness of tone, the sense of spontaneity, it's very hard to do. She was an artist, that's the bottom line.

And also:

In the same passage as the famous quote that ended the movie, "…I still believe people are good at heart," she had a vision of the world completely destroyed. She was veering between hope and despair. She was constantly talking about the dark side of human nature. She wasn't a perky little messenger of good cheer. But she was a kid, and kids think they're going to survive.

An excerpt of Prose's new look at the artistry of Anne Frank is available here. The interview also tipped me off to the fact that there is a "tiny video snippet" of Anne Frank--yes, the real person--available on YouTube. It's the only known video of her. The way she turns her head just gets me.

Image Credit: The Wall Street Journal

40 Books

Check out my new article over at AlterNet: "40 Books About Sexuality That You Have to Read."

As the new school year heats up, so does the public debate about sex education. ... If we can agree that few teens learn about sexuality in an accurate, age-appropriate, and comprehensive way, then where does that leave adults who came through the same school systems they did? Many of us are still full of questions that we aren’t quite sure how to articulate. Few can claim that they’ve figured sex -- and its social influence -- out.

If you want to graduate to the next level of sexual health, pleasure, and social awareness, now’s your chance. Get yourself schooled with a crash course in sex ed for adults. From orgasms to organs, from contraceptives to court decisions, look to the reading list below for the can’t-miss books and articles about sex.

I can't tell you how much fun it was to put together this list of fascinating writing. As a lovely addendum to my suggestions, commenters are coming up with additional great reads. If you have ideas of your own about what I missed, add them in!

RIP William Safire

William Safire died today at age 79, reportedly of pancreatic cancer. As a writer, he penned President Nixon's speeches, a Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times column that ran twice weekly for 32 years, four novels, and his "On Language" column (my personal favorite), which he wrote up until two weeks ago. He also wrote a dictionary and books on politics and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom a couple years ago. Safire never graduated college and was, it seems, pleased to tell you so.

"You shouldn't spend more than three hours writing a column," Safire once said in an interview. "If it takes you more than then three hours, than you haven't thought it through."

I encourage you to explore the interactive feature about Safire (where I culled the previous quote) over at his New York Times obituary. Among other fascinating stories that Safire tells, he describes the origin of the op-ed page; apparently, it was a Times innovation when it conjured commentary for the page opposite their editorials. While I always thought "op-ed" stood for "opinion/editorial," it's actually for "opposite (the) editorial page." Also fascinating: his discussion of developing sources while being a long-term columnist.

Acts of Art

Below is the trailer for a half-hour documentary made about the Prison Creative Arts Project, which I've been fortunate enough to be associated with for ten years now. The film, "Acts of Art: The Prison Creative Arts Project," is by Katherine Weider and was broadcast on PBS stations. While it features the visual arts aspects of the project, it also embraces theater and writing. Weider, I understand, is now working on a follow-up film.

To Read

Scott over at Conversational Reading has come up with a solid list of contemporary English-language authors that he feels he should read. Lorrie Moore, A.M. Homes, Chris Adrian, Percival Everett, Margaret Atwood, Steven Millhauser, and Aleksandar Hemon are among those who made the shortlist-- but he's asking for  folks to add additional ideas to his list via the comments, and to warn him off "anyone overrated" that he shouldn't waste his time with.

If you've got ideas, step on over and tell him so! Myself, I put in votes for Andrea Barrett, Amy Hempel, Kelly Link, Edward P. Jones, Marilynne Robinson, Anne Michaels, Ursula Le Guin and Binyavanga Wainana--but of course, that's just scratching the surface.